■ ■■ ■■Hi !■ qm m m liMPVW ' •» M mvp pmappp^p p m pp • • p pp •••' pp qjp.i.ii ■■uv m p w ^rTTT • 



































MOTHER WEST’S 

NEIGHBORS 


BY 

MRS. JANE DUNBAR 


CHAPLIN 




AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 

LOCKWOOD, BROOKS, AND COMPANY 
381 Washington St., Boston 

1876 


Copyright, 1876, by 
The American Tract Society. 


.C'i ’ 1 



If® 151 Donations of money are always needed 
by the Society to be used in distributing Tracts . 
“ Freely ye have received } Freely give? 


riverside, Cambridge: 

STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 
H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 


CONTENTS 


PAGB 

I. Guptil Alley 5 

II. Beautiful Tommy 17 

III. Kitty McCosh 26 

IV. Mary Lincoln 36 

V. Margaret Bell 47 

VI. Cousin Gerald 59 

VII. Mr. Jessop . . . . r 71 

VIII. Poor Joy 83 

IX. Miss Sibyl Thorne 95 

X. “ The Mission at our Door w . - . 109 

XI. Miss Sibyl and Mrs. Clapper . . . 12 1 

XII. The Landlord 130 

XIII. Taking Care of Themselves . . . 143 



PREFACE. 



HEY are greatly mistaken who imagine 


that mission work in our cities can be 
done only by the rich, who can win hearts and 
open them to the story of the Cross, by their 


gifts. 


Indeed, the spirit of our people often shrinks 
from the visits of those whose homes contrast 
so strongly with their own, and rebel against 
anything that seems to savor of patronage. 
They may doubt the possibility of those who 
never knew a want, and who never felt the 
weight of a frown, entering with sympathy 
into their deep poverty, or pitying their wan- 
derings from the straight path. 

We doubt not this feeling is carried too far 
by the honorable poor, who have struggled 
vainly for honest independence ; but there it is. 


2 


Preface . 


To such persons the most welcome visitor 
may be one who has passed through the same 
discipline, and who comes to share what he now 
has with them. God only knows the holy 
work wrought in the garrets and cellars of our 
own city by these hidden workers, of whom 
the world is not worthy ! 

It is, however, not the lack of gold, any more 
than it is the possession of it, which fits the 
Christian for work among the unfortunate and 
erring. A rich man may be humble and pitiful, 
and a poor one may be proud and heartless ; it 
is he or she who goes to the suffering as men 
to men, as women to women, those who live 
nearest to Christ, who will, in the great har- 
vest, bring in the heaviest sheaves with rejoic- 
ing. 

The characters and scenes in this little book 
are not mere fiction. We have among us mis- 
sions, from which weary toilers, overburdened 
with work, are calling in vain for helpers. There 
are dark, damp cellars, where, amid foul air and 
often fouler moral surroundings, pale little chil- 


Preface . 


3 


dren, with immortal souls, are wearing away 
life, or growing up to curse the generation to 
come. They call to us in the name of Him 
who blessed little children, to come and save 
them. 

There are dens of vice within bell-sound 
of our most elegant mansions and churches, 
where lights glare, and where the viol, attuned 
to ribald songs, breaks the stillness of the small 
hours ; where the ringing glasses, filled to the 
brim with death, sound like the clanking of 
Satan’s chain ; and where God’s name is ut- 
tered only in oath and curse. 

And down there, among the shadows of 
death, noble men and pure-hearted women are 
toiling day and night for Christ, with very few 
to hold up their hands, or to give them even 
a word of cheer. 

Here then, at our very doors, is work- for all 
who love to work with Christ ; a broad harvest 
waiting for laborers. Here the most degraded 
press in where the Gospel is preached, and in 
one place they hang round the Sunday-school, 


4 


Preface . 


and then go away because there are not 
teachers enough to lead them all to Christ ! 
This is in Christian Boston. 

If every church in our city would send one 
laborer, man or woman, rich or poor, into these 
missions at our door, the districts which now 
fill our jails and prisons would soon blossom 
as the rose, with purity and peace. 

We all know what Christ has done for us ; 
what are we now doing for Him ? He did not 
scorn to breathe out His pure life between two 
thieves ; shall we scorn to spend a little of our 
leisure and a little of our substance among 
those who are far from God ? 

Hillside Avenue, Boston Highlands, 

March 7th, 1876. 


MOTHER WESTS NEIGHBORS. 


I. 

GUPTIL ALLEY. 

A CITY pastor, in seeking for a poor par- 
ishioner one bright June morning, turned 
into a narrow, dark “ court,” the condition of 
which was a shame to any Christian commu- 
nity. Alas, that the religion of so many leads 
them to seek — for the poor — bliss in heaven, 
without any reference to comfort on earth ! 

A group of ragged children were playing 
with a headless doll, on a door-step ; another, 
of larger and more ragged ones, were kicking 
an old boot about, by way of a foot-ball, and 
shouting with all the ardor of champions in 
nobler games ; neglected little babies, wonder- 
ing what they had ever been born for, were 
moaning or shrieking within doors ; while care- 
less mothers were leaning idly out of their win- 
dows, chatting with and cajoling each other, as 


6 Mother West's Neighbors . 

if there were neither work nor want in the 
world. 

An old man with a wooden leg sat eating his 
breakfast, preparatory to making his morning 
raid on the charitable, who bought shoe-strings 
of him, because he needed, but did not ask for, 
money. 

“ Where can I find a Mrs. West in this court, 
sir ? ” asked the minister of the shoe-string 
peddler. 

“A Mrs. Weston ye mean? Do she hact 
the beggar in the theatre, sir ; and ’ave she a 
daughter who dance there? ’Er name is not 
West.” 

“ No, it is an old woman who has been in- 
jured by a fall lately, for whom I am looking.” 

“ Oh, bless yer ’eart, sir, I know who ye 
want! it's the hold saint that we calls Mother 
Watson/ because she live with ’er daughter, — 
Jim’s wife, you know ? ” 

“I never heard of him,” replied the minis- 
ter. 

“ Thank ’Eaven for that, sir ! ” cried the old 
man, catching off his hat, a mark of respect he 
had not thought of showing his poor breakfast. 


Gup til Alley . 


7 


“ Jim is the meanest, hevilest, and unkindest 
man alive, sir ; though it ’s said ’e war once a 
gentleman like.’' 

“ Then you know Mrs. West, do you ? ” asked 
the minister. 

“ ’Deed, sir, I ’ave reason to know ’er ! She 
’ave done more for me nor ’ave this ’ole Chris- 
tian city beside ! She ’elps me, she smiles on 
me, she pities me ; and I ’ave my surmises, — 
’twixt ye and me, sir, — that she do pray God 
to pity and bless ’er poor cripple neighbor. It 
seem, sir, as hif the likes o’ them two women 
ought to be favored o’ Heaven, place o’ bein’ 
tormented by such an evil one as Jim Watson ! 
’E drinks and ’e gambles and ’e leads other 
men into them same evil things. If them 
women put ’im up every time ’e break the 
law, ’e’d spend the rest o’ his nat’ral life in jail.” 

“ Poor women ! ” sighed the minister. 

“ Well, I ’m not so sure o’ that, sir ! They be 
so lifted above hother folk, that everybody ’ere 
henvies them. Fire and water don’t usual live 
together in peace, nor yet do angels and dev — 
beg yer pardon, sir, them hother kind I mean, 
— ’bide quiet together. But that old woman 
she do live ’oly among sinners.” 


8 


Mother West's Neighbors. 


“That is a beautiful testimony. Now please 
tell me, my good friend, where I shall find her,” 
* asked the minister, impatient to be at his work, 
and forgetting, perhaps, that he was even then 
at work. 

“ Hup there, sir, in that top room,' over there, 
where you see the flowers and the vines ; see, 
sir?” 

“Yes, thank you.” 

“ Well, but a word more afore ye go, — maybe 
ye don’t yet know all about Granny Watson, as 
we call ‘ Mrs. West.’ ” 

“ No.” 

“ Well, she is — but la, sir, it would take me 
a week to tell ye what she is ! In a word, sir, 
she ’s an angel among the darkest and sorriest 
set ye ever see. Do ye think the Lord do some- 
times send them ones down here in the form o’ 
humans ? ” 

“ He gives many of His children grace to live 
above the sin around them, and to glorify Him 
in the flames of poverty and sorrow.” 

“ Aye, ’E do that same for ’er — the Lord 
love ’er ! But I’m ’inderin’ both myself and ye, 
sir ; I thank ye for the honor o’ listening so pa- 


Gup til Alley . 9 

tient to a poor shoe-string peddler, with a small 
supply o’ brains.” 

And he clapped on his old hat and went on 
with the business before him — eating a poor 
cold breakfast. 

Stairs are among the sorrows of the very 
poor, and the good minister felt it when he had 
mounted four long flights in search of his old 
parishioner, who, although her name had stood 
for years on the church book, was almost a 
stranger to him. She had neither demanded 
nor asked attention from him ; and therefore, 
in the pressure of work and care, had received 
none. 

The entries and stairs were all untidy except 
the last flight and flat. A new spirit seemed to 
reign there, and the cloud rose from the good 
man’s heart when he heard the cheerful “ Come 
in,” of the old lady, in answer to his knock. 

The room was a barely furnished kitchen ; 
but it was redolent with that magic power called 
“ faculty,” whereby some rare women turn dens 
and hovels into homes. The aged woman sat 
there performing some light task, but when she 
saw her honored visitor, she rose, and by the 


io Mother West's Neighbors . 

help of a chair, which she pushed before her, 
ushered him into an inner room, which was 
her own. Such taste and order marked the 
place, that he forgot the surroundings, — un- 
consciously dropped the mingled air of the 
pastor and the patron, and assumed that of the 
gentleman in the drawing-room. 

He had often grasped the hand of the tall old 
parishioner in the poke bonnet, but never be- 
fore that of the graceful hostess, who now made 
him forget her garret, her rusty gown, and her 
coarse cap. Often had he felt himself among 
inferiors when in the gilded homes of wealth ; 
now he was with an equal in a garret, at the 
farther end of Guptil Alley ! 

“ I owe you an apology for not seeking you 
out before ; but I only yesterday heard of your 
being laid up,” he said. 

“ I hope you were with those more dependent 
on outside comforters, and less fortunate than 
I,” was the quiet reply of Mother West. 

The minister started, and involuntarily looked 
about him, as if to ask, “ Who is less fortunate ? ” 
but there was nothing to contradict her words 
of content. A breath of June air came to him 


Gup til Alley . 


ii 


over the flowers in the window ; and a row of 
time-browned volumes smiled on him from a 
shelf above — old volumes such as only noble 
souls enjoy, — Bunyan, Rutherford, Baxter, Ed- 
wards, and later ones of like spirit. 

The minister hardly knew how to begin com- 
forting her, she seemed so lifted above the need 
of his ministrations. So he asked in a neigh- 
borly way, “ What family have you, Mrs. 
West?” 

“ I have only one child living, sir, a frail 
young creature, that needs just the comfort you 
could give her if she were only here. Some 
way, my words fall short of comforting her. 
She always says, ‘ Oh, mother, you are so far 
beyond me that you cannot feel my weakness/ 
She's seen me go through such seas without 
being overwhelmed, that she thinks me tem- 
pest-proof, poor thing.” 

“ How long have you lived here, Mrs. 
West ? ” 

“ Three years, sir. Before that we lived in 
Weldon Street, in quite a different place. 
When my children were about me I had a 
lovely little home in the country, with enough 


12 Mother West's Neighbors . 

income to meet all reasonable wants and — 
but ” — 

“ But you lost it ? ” 

“Yes, we lost it; but the loss was small 
compared with the circumstances that brought 
it about,” she replied. 

Again there was silence, and the air, laden 
with perfume from the flowers, came in at the 
window again, and the old books seemed to 
smile on him. 

“ My child married with my consent and my 
blessing,” she began, “ and I placed my little 
property in her husband's hands as if he had 
been my own son. He soon grew weary of a 
quiet village, sold my home, and brought us to 
the city. I need not tell you the sad steps by 
which we went down, after we found out how 
cruelly we had been deceived by him. Here 
we are with nothing earthly left but our honor. 
My daughter goes out to work on a machine, 
for she will not eat bread earned by sin. We 
pay the rent, buy our food, and clothe ourselves. 
My son-in-law comes and goes when he pleases ; 
and we do all we can to make a cheerful home 
for him.” 


Gup til Alley . 


13 


“ But what can you do, — so old and feeble ? ” 
“ Oh, sir, I Ve had deft fingers in my day, and 
they have not lost all their cunning yet ! While 
I could do so I worked on ‘ ready-made cloth- 
ing ; ’ afterward I found work that accomplished 
more good for others, if not so much for my- 
self. I manage to do our little work here, and 
when that is done I mend for those in this great 
house who cannot or will not do it for them- 
selves. In that way I have made myself 
friendly with the poor things, and know all 
their hearts. Those who can, pay me ; and 
those who cannot, thank me and love me for it 
Oh, sir, this humble work has opened strange 
stories to me, and given me ways of blessing 
others I should never have had without it. 
There ’s a poor old Englishman, a cripple, living 
in the alley, and struggling bravely to earn his 
bread ; I do my part with my needle, and in 
gratitude to me he has given up drinking ale 
and taking the name of God in vain. He has 
not been in a church for twenty years, and is 
ashamed to go alone now. But if I am ever 
able to walk again, I hope to get him into the 
house of God ; you will see him there some 
day.” 


14 Mother Wests Neighbors . 

“ But in all this struggle does your son-in-law 
do nothing ? ” 

“ Would to Heaven he simply * did nothing/ 
sir. He has a place in this alley where young 
men meet, and drink and gamble and revile 
holy things. He has plenty of money ; and 
were we not what we are, by birth and training 
and the grace of God, we might fold our hands 
and eat the bread of idleness earned by sin. 
But God has kept us above that/’ 

“ Why don't you both leave him, and live at 
peace by your own work ? ” 

“ Because he has a soul, sir. He is my 
daughter’s husband, and she cannot give him 
up for lost. I feel that perhaps God sent him 
to me for salvation. It ’s a hard trial, sir, but 
only suppose that at last I should be able to 
present him blameless before the Father ? 
Is n’t that worth trying for ? Oh, sir, we all 
do too little to save those who are far below us, 
— the drunkard, the gambler, and those even 
viler than they — if that can be. Perhaps we 
should never labor for such if we were not 
whipped to the work as I have been. We have 
gone down step by step, after this poor young 


Gup til Alley. 


IS 


man, and have managed, thus far, to keep hold 
of him without defiling our own garments. I 
expect to see him saved yet, sir, as I have seen 
others around me. I am gathering my little 
harvest in this hard, stony field. If you will 
come here some Monday evening I will show 
you my sheaves. You may not think them 
very comely ones, but they are lovely to me 
and to Him who has honored my work among 
these poor neighbors. I have one, a poor 
negro, who was once far down, but now the 
wisest saint I know might be glad to serve him 
with a cup of cold water ; he is so like Christ ! 

I have had a cripple boy, a heart-broken wo- 
man, and many others in this poor court, given 
to me ; and of late I have had visits from la- 
dies, asking me about my poor neighbors, and 
getting counsel and help in their charities. 

I have been long working under ground ; 
but I begin to see a task before me in the 
light.” 

While the minister was walking home, he . 
wondered in his heart, which were greatest in 
the kingdom of heaven, God’s more public ser- 
vants, honored for their work’s sake, and sur- 


1 6 Mother West’s Neighbors. 

rounded by strong Christian helpers, or these 
hidden ones, who, like Mother West, are 
“working under ground” and alone for the 
souls Christ came to save. 


BEAUTIFUL TOMMY. 


1\ IT OTHER WEST had never presumed to 
•*■*■*• ask a visit — and hardly to hope for one 
— from him who had the care of hundreds of 
souls. When he had come of his own accord 
and rejoiced in her joys and entered into her 
sorrows, it seemed as if an angel had been to 
her poor home, and, departing, had left a heav- 
enly influence there. The flowers looked 
fresher, and the air, which swept in over high 
chimneys and roofs, seemed purer the next 
day ; and her heart was strangely lifted above 
the trials which so often caused her to wonder 
at God’s ways. 

Oh, if God’s ministers only knew the joy 
their presence gives in the homes of the poor, 
and the blessings which there await them- 
selves, they would not so readily pass such 
work and its rewards into the hands of lay- 
helpers. 


2 


1 8 Mother Wests Neighbors . 

At parting with his parishioner the minister 
had received a promise of seeing her “ Beauti- 
ful Tommy” the next time he came. 

And now he was mounting those many 
flights of stairs again, with the vague image of 
“ Beautiful Tommy ” before him — a fair, pale 
child with pearly complexion and sunny hair ; 
such a flower as now and then springs up and 
struggles on — seeming strangely out of place 
— amid poverty, coarseness, and sin. But it 
was no such fairy-like creature that met his 
eyes as he entered the room. “ Beautiful 
Tommy ” was a short, stumpy colored man, 
whose crisp locks were already white around 
his temples. He sat by a table, pointing out 
his letters with a knitting-needle and calling 
them aloud. 

“ Tommy, close the book. Here ’s the dear 
.minister,” said Mother West. 

Tommy had no idea of losing his place when 
it was so hard to find again ; so he tore a bit 
from the margin of a paper lying by him, and 
placed it between the leaves. Then he turned 
round and with a low bow said, “ I Ve heerd 
you preach forty time, sir, but I never ’spected 


Beautiful Tommy . 19 

to grasp your hand ! I ’s mighty honored, 
sir ! ” 

“ But if you ’ve been to my church so often, 
how comes it that I Ve never seen you, my 
friend ? ” asked the minister kindly. 

“ Oh, sir, it *s bekase I keeps out o' sight — 
pretty gineral — to the furder end o’ the orgin, 
and kind o’ behind it ; and I thought de rich 
ones would n’t be pleased fer to see me dar.” 

“ But they would be, and so would I, my 
friend,” said the minister. 

“ The saxtant told me they had gi’n heaps o’ 
money for the col’d folks to have a church o’ 
their own, and now they ’spected ’em to keep 
to it. I went dar, but somehow ’noder de Lord 
did n’t speak through dat bruder, as He did 
through you, to my soul.” 

“ And have you got good to your soul there, 
Tommy ? ” 

“ Got good to my soul, sir ? yes, and to my 
body too. I don’t guess your people knows 
what’s been in dat ar’ church, like I does. 
Mrs. West, she says it ’s ‘de gate o’ heaven* to 
her soul ; but I tells her it’s been heaven itself 
to mine ! ” 


20 Mother West's Neighbors . 

By this time Tommy had forgotten the 
weight of honor with which this visit had at 
first oppressed him ; and rising up he ex- 
claimed, “ Oh, sir, if I could only once stan’ up 
in dat ar’ pulpit and tell ’em what I ’s seen dar 
when dey was fannin’ deirsel’s and shaking deir 
jewl’ry ’bout and yawnin’, they would be 
’mazed ! Oh, sir, God comes powerful mighty 
into His own house.” 

“ Tommy,” said Mrs. West, “ the minister 
came on purpose to talk to you to-night. Now 
you must listen.” 

“ No, Mrs. West, I came to hear him talk ; ” 
said the good man. “ Now sit down, Tommy, 
and tell me who you are and all about the glory 
you have seen.” 

Thus far the good man had been standing ; 
but Mrs. West offered him the only large chair 
in the room — one covered with a gay chintz, 
with a snowy towel pinned neatly over the 
back of it. 

“ Dat ar napkin was put on clean for you — 
like givin’ a cup o’ cold water, you know.” 

The minister smiled and sat down. “ Now, 
Tommy, let me hear your story,” he said. 


Beautiful Tommy. 


21 


“ Well, sir, I was borned in slavery as you 
may see by my ignorance ; and I was borned 
in sin too. I don’t ’member no fader, no 
mammy ; but only de folks in de kitchen and 
massa’s people in de big house. Some of de 
black folks prayed, and some on ’em swared ; 
and some agin, did both, — as de ’casion re- 
quired. But massa he was an awful sinner ; 
and so was the young gent’men ! Dey used 
teach de little black chil’n to chaw tobaccy and 
to swar’ and to lie ; and used to give us boys 
brandy till we made fools of oursel’s for deir 
sport ! 

“ So I growed up. I had a powerful sperit 
in me ; and massa said, one time, dat he’d break 
either my will or my neck. But he did n’t 
do nather ! I runned off and come North, — 
as big a heathen as grows away off in them 
foreign places. 

“I thought everybody was agin me here, 
and watchin’ a chance to send me back to my 
massa. I was afeared o’ policemen and of 
everybody with good clothes on ; so I begged 
of beggars, and slept under carts — and such 
like, and now and then picked up a job. 


22 Mother West's Neighbors . 

“ One day a child hailed me, and axed me 
did I want to lug a ton of coal up four flights 
o’ stairs ; and dat ar coal, sir, was dis blessed 
lady’s ! And it was de preciousest load ever I 
lugged ! It was mighty hard afore I got 
through, special’ as I had n’t had no breakfast 
on’y a doughnut and an apple. I axed her 
mought I sit down on de stairs and rest a bit, 
kase I was faint. She said, ‘ Come in here and 
sit down, and drink some hot coffee and eat a 
good breakfast and rest long ’s you want to/ 

“ ‘ How much will you ax me ? ’ says I. 

“ * Nothin’,’ says she. 

“ ‘ Who ’ll pay you for ’t, then ? ’ says I. 

“ ‘ Our Fader in Heaven, what feeds the ra- 
vens/ says she. 

“ ‘ Missus, you ’s foolin’ ! ’ says I. 

“‘No, bruder, I isn’t/ says she. ‘You 
look sick and tired. De Lor’ has sent me 
enough and more than enough for dis day’s 
bread ; and I ’ll share it wid you for His sake/ 

“ ‘ For whose sake ? ’ says I. 

“ ‘ Why, for Christ’s sake,’ says she. 

“‘Oh phool’says I. ‘ I’se heard lots o’ 
pra’rs wound up, “ for Christ’s sake ; ” but I 
never seen nothin’ done for His sake/ 


Beautiful Tommy . 


23 


“ ‘ Do you love Him ? ’ says she. 

“ ‘ I ain’t acquainted with Him/ says I. 

“ ‘ Poor, dear soul ! ’ says she, as tender as if 
I was a sick baby. I looked at her, sir, and I 
thought her face was shinin’ like silver ! By 
dis time she had spread a white cloth on dis 
’ere table, and put bread and meat and coffee 
on to it. She axed me to sit by, and she sat 
down too and axed de Lord to give me daily 
bread, every day ; and to give me de bread o* 
heaven, too. I tell you, sir, I was n’t half so 
wicked when I got dat breakfast eat up ! I 
was ready to hear ’bout God, as I was n’t wid 
that awful gnawin’ inside o’ me ! 

“ Well, sir, she got a chance for me to live in 
dis yere cellar kitchen. And then she got jobs 
for me. She began to teach me to read ; and 
she got me warm clothes — dat was winter 
time — and mor’n dat she alius called me 
‘ friend’ or ‘ bruder.’ Every time I looked at 
her, or ’membered of her, I thought o’ her 
words — ‘ for Christ’s sake ; ’ and soon I be- 
gun to think dis yere Christ was worth lookin' 
arter ! And I looked arter Him. I sarched 
for Him in de dark; and by’m-by I found 


24 Mother West's Neighbors . 

Him ; and here I is to-night, sir, Happy Tom ! 
I would n't change places wid old massa as he 
was afore de war ; but if I knowed whar’ to 
find him and de young gent’men I’d walk 
down to Nor’ Ca’liny, and I take 'em all in my 
arms and carry 'em to Jesus. I love de whole 
worl’, sir, wid such love dat it 'pears like I 
would n’t go to heaven widout takin’ dem all 
long wid me!" 

“ Tell the minister where you first found 
Christ, Tommy,” said his patron. 

“ In your great church, sir. I 'd been many 
days a sarchin’ for Him, and cryin’ for Him, 
when one Sunday mornin’ I crep’ in by de 
orgin and yur preached, * He is nigh unto every 
one o' you.' And just at dat minute 'peared 
like de roof was lifted off, and I see Him corn- 
in' down in de clouds. He come and stood by 
side o’ me, and I was in heaven, sir ! I looked 
down and see de gran’ folks all calm — like jis 
as if nothin’ had happened. Dey fanned and 
yawned and shuk deir ear-rings, and did n't 
know Christ was dar ! I did n't hear no more 
dat you say, dat day ; but when de church 
broke up, I come home, like I had company all 
de time by my side.” 


Beautiful Tommy . 


25 


“And ever since that day, sir, he has been 
doing something 'for Christ’s sake.’ Not a 
day passes but he lugs up coal, or brings water, 
or tends a baby for a tired mother, or gives 
food to the needy. If every one who names 
the name of Christ did as much in proportion 
to his ability as Tommy does, there would soon 
be no poverty in the world. I ’ve learned, and 
am still learning sweet lessons from him. 
Strangers round here call him ‘ Black Tom ; ’ 
but I call him ‘ My beautiful Tommy ; ’ and I 
know he is beautiful in the eye of Him who 
has redeemed him and set His seal upon him,” 


III. 


KITTY MCCOSH. 

TV /T ANY whose lot has been cast on the 
^ ^ flower-clad hills of life, imagine that all 
in the valleys below them is misery, gloom, 
and discontent ; that peace never lurks among 
shadows, nor joy among the mists. But this 
is not so. God giveth to all men liberally. 
His refreshing rains and His life-giving sun- 
beams pierce the clouds of poverty and feeble- 
ness ; and light up many a poor home, which 
to the charitable visitor seems devoid of all 
comfort. The cases are very rare where life 
has no present joy, no alluring hope. 

Across the end of Guptil Alley were three 
houses whose doors opened directly from the 
brick sidewalk, and were protected from the 
invasion of horses by a rude railing, a few feet 
from the front windows. This railing had its 
disadvantages. The boys turned somersaults 
over it, and idle young men perched there to 


Kitty McCosk. 


27 


chat and smoke, when doing nothing worse. 
And such visitors did not add to the cleanli- 
ness of the premises. Tobacco juice, peanut 
shells, pop-corn papers, and the like were scat- 
tered there daily, and left to accumulate before 
most of the doors. Every evening one walk 
was swept and garnished by the plump little 
hands of Kitty McCosh, who said, every time 
she assailed it with a broom and water, “ If I 
must be' poor, I will be clean.” 

Kitty’s father and mother had lived up-stairs 
in this house till the death of the latter. 
When the humble funeral was over, and Willie 
returned with his little girl to the lonesome 
room, he sat down to review the past and to 
face the future. He remembered his early 
teachings in the village kirk among the Scot- 
tish hills, and at his mother’s knee in the poor, 
turf-covered cottage ; he thought of all his 
wanderings from God since then, and of the 
sorrow he had brought on her who had left a 
happy home and alienated herself from her 
family to follow him over the sea. 

Taking Kitty by the hand he went down- 
stairs and into the room of “ a lone body 


28 Mother Wests Neighbors . 

named Mistress Hunter,” who had been his 
wife’s kindest neighbor. 

“ Here, neebor,” he said, “ is Kitty for ye ; 
the best and dearest thing I ha’ in the world. 
It ’s na fit that she live wi’ me and see the 
company that may gather round me now Bes- 
sie ’s gone. Keep her and I ’ll do right in the 
futur’, and pay yer rent every Saturday night.” 

This was not a princely offer ; but Susan 
Hunter was a lonely woman ; so she accepted 
the charge gladly. 

Willie had now forgotten his vows to “do 
right in the futur’, but he had always paid Mrs. 
Hunter’s rent, and taken tea with the child on 
Sunday. 

Kitty had come up with the neat ways of her 
protector, and was now a light-hearted, buxom 
little girl, the nurse of all the neglected babies, 
and the patron of the older children in the 
alley. Even the big boys used to come to her 
to settle their disputed right, to complain when 
they were called hard names, or got a blow or 
a kick from an unruly playmate. 

She usually opened court on these occasions 
by saying to the complainant, “ Go wash your 


Kitty McCos/i. 


29 


face and hands, and then I 'll talk to you ; ” 
and they always obeyed her, even when they 
had to borrow soap and towel from her. 

It had never entered Kitty’s head that she 
was an unfortunate child, when at the age of 
thirteen she began to earn her own clothes, by 
sewing porcelain buttons on to cards, as sold 
in the stores. She formed a score of bright 
plans for spending her first “ lovely new dollar 
bill,” but she cheerfully yielded them up when 
Mrs. Hunter reminded her that she would soon 
need a warm cloak and stout shoes. 

Kitty had begun to attend Mother West’s 
meetings; and one night “ Black Tommy,” in 
trying to describe the chorus of heaven, had 
made this remark: “ Anybody dat goes up 
from Guptil Alley to de Fader’s house on 
high won’t know deirsel’s, it ’ll be so clean up 
dar! No mud, no rubbish, no litter, no bad 
smells ; it will alius be swep’ clean and dusted ; 
and de shinin’ gates and de golden streets will 
be kep’ polished all de time ! And only dem 
dat love holy and clean t’ings will be let in ! 
So if you wants to be happy where you got to 
keep fixed up, you best begin right smart here, 


30 Mother West's Neighbors . 

before, to be tidy-like, same ’s you see here, and 
in Missey Hunter’s room ; my place is too 
poor to talk ’bout, but I keeps it right smart 
to de eye of the Massa who visits me all 
times.” 

“ I ’m going to clean up this alley and keep 
it clean ! ” cried Kitty, as she and Mrs. Hunter 
walked up to their own door. 

“ It ’s no use, child ; for the boys would 
throw old vegetables and sticks about on pur- 
pose to tease you,” replied the good woman. 

“ Well, I mean to try at any rate,” said 
Kitty, “ for if God and the good folks in heaven 
look down in here it must seem awful to 
them ! ” 

The next evening, just after sunset, she 
rolled up her pink “ pocket-apron,” heavy with 
buttons, and set off for a walk. It was well 
she did not tell Mrs. Hunter her plans, or they 
would never have been carried out. 

Kitty, dressed in her best, with her cheeks 
like roses, ran up the high steps of the house 
where the landlord lived, rang the bell, and 
asked to see him. Concluding she was some 
lady’s errand girl, the servant showed her into 


Kitty Ale Cosh. 


31 


the library where the gentleman was sitting, 
reading his evening paper. 

“ Well, child ? ” he said, when he saw her be- 
fore him. 

“ I ’m Kitty McCosh, sir ; ” said the little 
girl, with a courtesy. 

“ I ’m glad to hear it,” replied the rich man, 
smiling at her innocence. “ Now tell me who 
Kitty McCosh is, and what she wants here.” 

“ I ’m Willie McCosh’s child, that lives with 
Mrs. Hunter, 18 Guptil Alley. You own the 
houses there, sir ” 

“ Oh, do I ? Well, I ’m glad to hear that, 
too ; for sometimes I ’ve doubted it, I get so 
little rent there. Well, Kitty, what is it ? ” 

“ I want to be clean, sir ! ” she exclaimed. 

“ You are, my child, as clean as a lily ! ” 

“ Well, sir, but I want everybody else to be 
clean, too ! ” 

“Then you're in a sad place, Kitty, for there 
are very few in Guptil Alley who care to be 
neat. I’m ashamed to own the place,” said 
the landlord. 

“ But you Ve surely seen one neat place, sir, 
at the end o’ the alley ? ” said Kitty. 


32 


Mother West's Neighbors. 


“ Yes ; and I ’ve thought of giving a pre- 
mium to the tenant that sets such a good ex- 
ample there.” 

“ That ’s me, please sir ! ” cried Kitty, with 
glowing cheeks. “ I get up every morning 
early, and sweep and wash our bit o’ walk ; and 
afore night I sweep it again. And I watch, 
and scold the boys ; and one way and another 
I keep it clean.” 

“ And what do you want of me, child ? ” 

“ I want you to help me keep the alley clean, 
sir.” 

“ Me ? what can I do, child ? ” 

“ You can bid them all be neat, and tell 
them they shan’t stay there if they ’re not.” 

“ I ’ve told them that a hundred times, and 
they only grow worse.” 

“Not all o’ them, sir. Think o’ lonely 
Mother West, and Mammy Hunter, and black 
Tom — no, 'Beautiful Tommy’ they cal) him 
now. They keep neat inside, sir. Mother 
West gave me a new broom and pail to wash 
my walk, and told me God would love me if I 
tried to make the place tidy. And He ’ll love 
you if you help me ! ” 


Kitty McCosh. 


33 


“ Well, Kitty, I 'll do that ; I ’ll make you 
my little policeman to enforce my orders. I’ll 
give you five dollars now, and you may hire 
the boys to help you, or you may punish them 
in some way for hindering your work.” 

“ Five dollars, sir ! Why, I ’m afraid to go 
through the street with that, lest I be robbed!” 
cried Kitty. 

“ What will you do first, my child ? ” 

“ First, sir ? Oh, I ’ll pray first that God 
would help me. Then I ’ll go to work, and I 
know the big boys will help me.” 

“ Well, go then, child ; and come back in a 
week and tell me how you succeed. Good-by.” 

With her five dollar bill grasped in her 
hand, she rushed through the streets as if all 
the highwaymen in the city were at her heels. 

It was a moonlight night, and the alley boys 
were entertaining themselves by playing and 
hiding behind ash-barrels and tip-carts. 

“ Come, boys, run for your sisters, and bring 
all the brooms, and shovels, and pails you can 
find. I ’m going to clean the alley, and keep it 
clean ; and I want your help. When it ’s done 
I ’ll have a ‘ party ’ in my room ; and if we can 
3 


34 Mother Wests Neighbors . 

keep it clean, I ’ll have a party every month. 
Every one that helps, and that don’t spit or 
throw nutshells, and old cabbage-leaves, and 
fish-bones about, and will dress up clean, shall 
come to it.” 

It was a sight to bless the eyes of philan- 
thropists, when Kitty had marshaled her force 
and got them into working order. She armed 
herself with a hoe and attacked the scat- 
tered rubbish, drawing it into a heap for 
Tom Bolt to shovel into his wheelbarrow ; 
while other boys shoveled and hoed, and the 
girls swept in all directions, laughing and 
whistling. Men and women looked from doors 
and windows in amazement at “ children wea- 
rying themselves at such useless work,” and 
called out, “ Who bid you do that, simple 
things ? ” 

“ Kitty McCosh is tryin’ to make our ' alley 
look like heaven above/ ” cried a boy ; “ and 
we are helpin’ her so to get a party, with nuts 
and apples.” 

Here Beautiful Tommy appeared on the 
scene of action with his shovel and wheelbar- 
row ; then several men came out, offering to 
help also. 


Kitty McCosk. 


35 


By nine o’clock, although Guptil Alley fell 
far short of our ideas of heavenly purity, it 
looked like a new place. The ash-man had 
ten times his usual load from there next day ; 
and the women all set to work, washing their 
doors and windows. The landlord heard the 
news and called on Kitty ; he praised the neat- 
ness of the place and promised a monthly 
“ party ” to the children as long as they would 
keep it in order. 

Kitty thanked God that night for what He 
had helped her to do ; and the next day she 
told “Beautiful Tommy” that all this came 
from the sermon he preached about heaven, at 
Mother West’s meeting. And Kitty was hap- 
pier than many a petted child who knows not 
how to pass the weary hours. 


IV. 


MARY LINCOLN. 

* * A RE you perfectly sure there ’s a heaven, 
mother ? ” asked a sick young girl, 
with the hot roses burning on her cheeks. 

“ Of course, my darling/’ replied the lady. 
“ If not, where would people go when they die ? 
And then the Bible, which is all true, tell us 
so.” 

“ I never saw it in the Bible, mother. It is 
not in the ten commandments, I know,” re- 
plied the young girl. 

“ Perhaps -not, my love,” answered this culti- 
vated heathen ; “ but it is somewhere in the 
Book.” 

“ And will everybody in the world go there 
after death ? ” 

“ Low and wicked people, who kill and steal, 
ought not to go to such a beautiful place ; but 
all respectable and good folk will ; why should 
they not ? ” 


Mary Lincoln . 


37 


“ Do you think I can get in there, mother ? ” 

“ You, my darling? Of course you can! 
What have you ever done that would shut you 
out of heaven ? ” 

“ What have I ever done that would help me 
to get in there ? I have never done any good, 
and I don’t know God. I ’ve never prayed to 
Him, nor loved Him. ,, 

“ Why, Mary, how you do talk, my dear ! 
You have never done anything but good. Only 
think what a comfort you have been to papa 
and me! You do know God, darling, — that 
He is the wisest and kindest being in all the 
world ; and as to praying to Him, you have al- 
ways said, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep/ ever 
since you could speak. And you cannot have 
forgotten that papa has always read a prayer at 
breakfast every New Year’s morning, so as to 
begin the year aright ; and that we had a min- 
ister on purpose to pray when grandma and 
the dear little boys died.” 

“ And yet, mother, God is a stranger to me. 
I do not love Him, and yet my heart aches for 
Him.” 

“ Yes, you do love Him, dear. You are nerv- 


38 Mother West's Neighbors . 

ous ; you must take a powder and go to sleep 
now.” 

“ Oh no, not now, mother dear ; this is Mon- 
day night, is n’t it ? ” 

“ Yes, love, why ? ” 

“ Because, mother, there ’s something very 
strange happens on Monday evenings now. 
Just as I get settled for the night I hear sing- 
ing. It sounds very far off, and yet I hear the 
words as plainly as if the singers were in my 
room. You know I hear sounds that are too 
far off for other ears.” 

“ No doubt it comes from the Methodist 
church round the corner. It is a shame for 
those people to sing so loud as to disturb the 
sick ! I wonder if they think such screaming 
will get them into heaven easier than remain- 
ing peaceably at home will do.” 

“ They never trouble me, mother. I love to 
hear them sing. But they have no meeting, 
nursie says, on Monday evening ; so she thinks 
I dream of the singing. Last Monday night I 
know I heard these words : 4 The old, old story 
of Jesus and His love.’ I do wish, mother, 
I knew more about His love. When I am so 


Mary Lincoln . 


39 


tired, I often long to see Him, as if that would 
rest me. Don’t you remember how our old 
Katie used to sing about Jesus, to rest herself 
when she was tired ? ” 

“ Yes, poor, ignorant old creature. She had 
no other way of amusing herself.” 

“ Mother, will you find out who these singers 
are ? I want to see them so much. I think 
they could teach me how to rest, and tell me 
how to love God.” 

“Yes, my dear, I will try, and if they are 
respectable people, we will ask them to come 
here and sing for you.” 

Guptil Alley was not in the low part of that 
city, but was a blot on a fine section where 
nearly all the buildings were new. From the 
high windows of Mother West’s room one 
could look into the vine-clad yards of the 
“ square,” on which this young girl lived, and 
when the noises of the city were hushed, 
voices could be heard from them. It was from 
those flower-screened windows that “the old, 
old story ” had been wafted into that chamber 
of luxury and to the ear of the sick girl, 
awakening in her heart a desire for the joy 
it described. 


40 Mother Wests Neighbors. 

On this Monday evening the parents and the 
nurse were seated, at her request, by the open 
window, listening for the “ beautiful words,’* 
which were clearly uttered : — 

“ Ye, who, tossed on beds of pain, 

Seek for ease but seek in vain, ' 

Hither come, for here is found 
Balm that flows for every wound, 

Peace that ever shall endure, 

Rest eternal, sacred, sure.” 

“ What can that ‘ rest * be ? Father, go and 
find them, and bring them here to me.” 

“ Why, my dear, what could I say to strange 
people living, as I think these do, in a tenement 
house behind us ? ” asked the kind father in 
surprise. 

“ I want to see them, father. I am tired, and 
they can tell me how to rest. Go, for my sake, 
dear father.** 

That was too great a sacrifice of dignity, but 
the affectionate father compromised the matter 
by asking information and aid of the grocer in 
the next street. a Oh yes,” the man replied, 
“ I know where that hymn-singing comes from. 
There’s an old saint in Guptil Alley who 


Mary Lincoln . 


4i 


quarters all the miserable creatures she can 
find, about her, and feeds them, and gets work 
for them, and converts them into Christians. 
There 's an old black fellow, that was a pest 
in the neighborhood, but he's turned into a 
new man. He used to dance clog-dances and 
sing low songs for pennies on the corners and 
round the market. Now he works like a dog, 
and keeps himself clean, and goes to Sunday- 
school and meeting like a Christian. He 's got 
a splendid voice, and sings with the old lady 
and some others every Monday night in her 
room. I always listen to them if I 'm not too 
busy in the store." 

“ Go and bring them to my house to sing, 
and I 'll pay them well. My sick child is so 
charmed with the words they sing that she will 
not rest till she sees them." 

Christians in health and blessed with plenty 
little know the effort it cost Mother West, with 
her infirmities, to array herself in her best 
black gown and cap, to provide her “ Beautiful 
Tommy " with the little extras which she 
thought necessary to make him presentable in 
a gentleman’s house, and to train Kitty Me- 


42 Mother West's Neighbors . 

Cosh in manners, before she, leaning on her 
daughter’s arm, met the father and mother of 
Mary Lincoln in their gorgeously furnished 
parlor. 

If these parents had looked for a band of 
poor but merry singers who were flattered by 
this call, and hopeful of gain from it, they must 
have been greatly surprised at the modest dig- 
nity of Mother West and her daughter, and 
the bashful surprise of the others. 

All the party were seated but Tommy ; he 
was left to crouch behind the door, as if he had 
been their watch-dog. 

After the mother had told of the wonderful 
goodness of her child, and of the strange nerv- 
ousness which had now taken possession of her 
about heaven, she 'led them up-stairs, ignoring 
the presence of Tommy, as she passed him in 
the hall. 

“ Come, Tommy,” said Mother West, “ we 
cannot sing without you, and we want the help 
of your faith while we pray for this dear child.” 

Tommy followed with much hesitation till he 
reached the door of the sick-room. There he 
seated himself on the stairs, and whispered to 


Mary Lincoln. 


43 


his patron, “ It might skeer her to see such a 
poor-lookin' cretur as me, so I 'll set here and 
sing." 

Mother West sat down by the bed, and hold- 
ing the hand of the sick girl, asked : “ What 
can I do for you, my dear child ? " 

“ You can tell me how to find rest, and how 
to go to heaven. I want to hear that ' old, old 
story' you sing about, and I want to know 
God." And they sang to her of 

“Jesus and his glory, 

Of Jesus and his love.’* 

And when their song ceased, the sufferer 
said, “ Oh, how happy for you ! But I am so 
ignorant that it will take me a long time to 
learn that story." 

“ No, my dear child, you can learn it now, it 
is so short and simple. It is this : you need 
Jesus for your friend and Saviour, and He is 
here at your bedside, ready to receive you if 
you will only come to Him." 

“ But He seems very far off, and the way to 
Him is dark and rough, and I cannot get there, 
I am so weak." 

“If Christ should come into the room now 


44 Mother West's Neighbors . 

as He used to enter sick-rooms when He was 
on earth, what would you do ? ” asked Mother 
West. 

“ Oh, if He only would ! I would throw my 
arms around Him, and never, never leave Him 
again/’ 

"Well, my dear child, He is here beside you, 
just as surely as if your poor, tired eyes could 
see Him. Now lay your hand in His and just 
tell Him all you would if you could see Him. 
He says still: ‘ Come unto me, all ye that labor 
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ 
Those are His words, and if you are weary and 
want rest, it is ready for you.” 

“ But I must do something to please God be- 
fore He will let me come to Him,” said the 
sick girl. 

“ No, nothing but believe on Him and accept 
His offer of mercy and peace. He Himself 
said, when He gave up His life, ‘ It is finished.’ 
So He left nothing for us poor sinners to do in 
the way of salvation, but to accept it as a free 
gift. If you should live an hundred years and 
work faithfully for Christ, you would still have 
to accept His salvation as a gift.” 


Mary Lincoln. 


45 


“ Oh, is that all ? Well, I am not too weak 
and tired to take a gift, but if I had anything 
to do first I should die without finding rest,” 
said the young girl, closing her eyes and turn- 
ing her head wearily away. 

The visitors sang again, in a low tone, “ Just 
as I am, without one plea,” and then, without a 
parting word, slipped silently out of the room, 
so as not to break the gentle sleep into which 
Mary had fallen. 

Those parents, though living in the full light 
of the gospel, had never before heard of its 
pure simplicity. They were touched by the 
tenderness and zeal of their humble visitor; 
and asked, before they parted with her, for a 
visit from the clergyman who had taught her 
all this. 

The minister came the next day, but it was 
too late for him to point the young girl to 
Christ. She had found Him, already, the joy 
and the rest of her soul, and gladly did she 
acknowledge the gift through that humble 
messenger. 

Each servant of God has his own appointed 
work, which cannot be taken from him by 


4 6 Mother West's Neighbors. 

another, and the glory of leading this sweet 
child into rest and joy belonged to Mother 
West, and not to her learned pastor. 

The humble woman became a welcome guest 
at this home of wealth, and her visits were like 
those of an angel in the sick-room. Even 
Tommy was welcomed when he went to sing, 
but nothing could ever induce him to go nearer 
than the “ top-steer, lest he might skeer de 
sick lady/’ 

All in that house are now asking about this 
strange “ story,” which is as new to them as if 
they had been born in a heathen land. 

They are softened towards the gospel, and al- 
most willing to yield to its claims if presented 
by a man of learning and popularity. But 
God will send by whom He will send, and He 
may humble their pride by sending His light 
through one of His lowly servants in Guptil 
Alley. 


V. 


MARGARET BELL. 

TV /T OTHER WEST, her daughter, and 
Kitty McCosh had visited Mary Lin- 
coln, and sung for her more than once, and had 
been tolerated rather than welcomed by her 
mother. The news had spread among the 
friends of the Lincolns, that “ an old minister 
in the neighborhood, hearing of the sickness 
and unhappiness of that lovely child, had sent 
half a dozen fanatical beggars to the house, to 
scare her into a belief of his own hard doc- 
trines ; ” and some of them felt bound to fly to 
her succor. 

Among these deliverers from imaginary evil 
was Margaret Bell, a bright and lovely woman 
(most people called her a girl), who was the 
charm of the circle in which she moved. She 
was the devout friend and companion of Mrs. 
Lincoln, although in every respect her supe- 


rior. 


48 Mother West's Neighbors . 

Margaret’s complexion was as pure as a lily, 
and time had left untouched the roses on her 
cheeks, and the brown hue of her hair. Her 
spirit was as light as a child’s, and she made 
sunshine wherever she went. She was thirty- 
eight years old, yet nobody regarded her as “ a 
maiden lady.” She had remained unmarried, 
simply because she had never seen any one she 
loved well enough to marry. She shared and 
rejoiced in all the joys of her married friends, as 
if it were her own happiness. They named 
their babies for her, and all longed to have their 
daughters just like her, — earnest, active, and 
unselfish, the patron of the poor, and the ad- 
mired friend of all. Margaret Bell was a strong 
woman and relied greatly on her own judgment, 
and knew her power of exercising it over others. 
She rarely argued a point, but, in the gentlest, 
sweetest way, stated her position, and drew 
others to it by her own confidence in it as the 
right one. 

Mary Lincoln was one of Margaret’s pets ; 
and when the latter returned from a distant 
city and found her ill, and heard the exagger- 
ated story of her having been “ frightened into 


Margaret Bell . 


49 


religion, 1 ” she took the matter into her own 
strong hands. She one night volunteered to 
watch with her, after having given her views of 
“ those horrid doctrines/' in a way that startled 
the indulgent mother. 

“ And so you ’ve been ill, darling, and I not 
here to nurse and comfort you ; ” she said, 
laying her cool, soft cheek beside the burning 
one of poor Mary. 

“Yes, but I’m better now, and can sleep so 
sweetly. I am peaceful, even when I am in 
pain. Oh, rest is so lovely, Miss Margaret,” 
said the sick girl. 

“ I ’m delighted to hear you say that. I 
know my darling Molly had too much good 
sense to be scared out of her dear little wits 
by half a dozen old tramps, that naughty 
mamma, in her false love, let in to worry you. 
I have given mamma a good scolding, and 
left one for papa, when he wakes up in the 
morning ; and after this I am going to be a 
watch at your door. No old grannies, and 
tramps, and dwarfs shall come in here again 
to tell my sweet Molly that she ’s a sinner, — 
the ridiculous thought ! ” 


4 


50 Mother West's Neighbors . 

“ But, Miss Margaret dear, I am a great 
sinner, and I knew it before these poor folks 
told me so. I wanted everything and I had 
nothing. I was tired all the time, and could n’t 
rest, and, and, — but oh, I can’t tell it all, it ’s 
so long ! I shall never, never be able to tell 
half of it here.” 

“ And you came to your senses, and saw 
that you were safe, and had a right to rest 
in God, did n’t you, my dear ? ” 

“ No, not so, Miss Margaret. I saw I was 
all wrong, and had no right to anything from 
God.” 

“ Who had, if you had n’t ? ” 

“ Nobody. But God has prepared a rest 
for me in Christ, who has taken away all my 
sins. I have found it through Mother West. 
I don’t think I shall let you call my friends 
4 grannies, and tramps, and dwarfs,’ Miss Mar- 
garet. I do wish you could hear them sing. 
I never heard such music before,” said Mary 
smiling. 

Miss Margaret laughed, patted the hot 
cheek, and said, 44 Poor sick darling, you ’re 
turned back to babyhood again ; I used to sing 
to you, — 


Margaret Bell. 


51 


* Trot, trot to Boston, 

To buy a little pig/ 

‘Dickery, dickery, dock, 

The mouse ran up the clock/ 

and you thought that mine was the sweetest 
music in the world. You ’ll get over this hal- 
lucination when you are once well again, 
dear.” 

“ Get over what ? ” 

“ Why, these queer notions ; that you are 
a sinner, that you must be under obligations 
to somehody else, to get you safe into 
heaven.” 

“ I hope God will take me to Himself first. 
I should tremble at the thought of rising 
from this bed and going out, without Christ 
to guide me, and comfort and save me; oh, 
He is so dear to me ! ” 

Miss Margaret looked at the pale girl, and 
sighed, and then said, “ Look at me, dear ; 
did you ever see a happier woman than I ? ” 

“You are very cheerful when I see you; 
but don’t you sometimes fear death, and wish 
you had some one to go into the grave with 
you ? ” asked Mary. 


52 Mother West's Neighbors . 

Miss Margaret was silent a moment, for 
she was truthful in all matters ; but soon she 
replied, “ No one loves death, the destroyer 
of this body, my dear ; but we must all die, 
and so brave people make up their minds to 
meet death like heroes and heroines ; I hope 
for the best beyond the grave.” 

“ In what do you hope, Miss Margaret ? ” 

“ I hope in God, dear. He has made me, 
and placed me here to honor and to please 
Him, and I have tried my very best to do so ; 
and therefore I know He will accept me. I 
follow Christ’s example.” 

“ Have you always done just as Christ did 
here ? ” 

“ Well, I always try to follow Him. I give 
my money to the poor, I nurse the sick, and 
I teach little street Arabs, — when I can catch 
them, and hold on to them long enough. I ’m 
a pretty good sort of a lady, Molly ; and I 
think I have done enough in this world to 
carry me safely into the next. Don’t you ? ” 

“I can’t read your heart, Miss Margaret. 

I thought I was very good, till I saw my 
heart ; and I thought I needed no one but 


Margaret Bell \ 


S3 


papa and mamma to lean on, till I saw they 
could n’t help me. I found I was a poor, sin- 
ful child, who had never had one good thought 
and never done anything for Christ. Every 
pleasant word or kind act had been to please 
some one else ; and God was n’t in all my 
thoughts. I was just as proud of my good- 
ness, and as selfish, as I could be ! But that 
'old, old story of Jesus and His love,’ — oh, 
I wish you could hear those poor people sing 
it!” 

“ Thankee, ma’am, I ’d rather go to the op- 
era for my music ! ” replied Miss Margaret 
playfully. “ I ’d rather work myself into 
heaven, than to go creeping in on somebody 
else’s merits. I choose to ' paddle my own 
canoe.’ ” 

Mary did not smile, but she replied, “ If 
you could only hear them tell of Jesus, I 
know you would love them, as well as Him.” 

“ No, dear, not in the sense of admiration. 
I pity such folks, and I will help you to clothe 
and feed them, by and by ; but I won’t love 
them.” 

“ I . almost envy them ; Christ lives with 


54 Mother West's Neighbors . 

them, and walks with them, and talks to them 
every day ; and they forget their shabby 
clothes, and their poor homes, and feel like 
kings and queens, because He has mansions 
and thrones all prepared for them, without 
any labor or price from them.” 

“Yes, there’s the trouble with such folks; 
they are mean-spirited ; they are willing to ac- 
cept so much aid and help from others ! I 
want to merit heaven, and get it as the re- 
ward of my labor. But I shall not argue any 
more with you, my darling. These whims 
will vanish with the effects of the morphine ; 
and before long, you and I will be running 
up and down Guptil Alley, carrying flannel 
and shoes and cookies to Granny West, and 
the professors in her divinity school ! 11 

“ Will you go to Mother West’s for me to- 
morrow ? ” asked Mary. 

“ What ? to get myself corrected by Pro- 
fessor Tommy, and to take lessons in piety 
of the little button girl ? ” cried Miss Margaret 
in playful surprise. 

“No, but to do her a kindness.” 

“ Indeed I will, and glad of the chance. 


Margaret Bell. 


55 


‘ Do and live/ is my motto. I would crawl on 
my knees (I guess I would) to Guptil Alley 
to serve anybody ; but I won’t put myself un- 
der tutelage to such folks. Now good- night, 
darling.” 

The weak, trusting child turned her face to 
the wall in search of sleep ; and the strong 
self-righteous woman buried herself in a great 
easy- chair, to reflect on the strange things she 
had heard for the first time, from the lips of 
one whose words she believed. 

Silence which was only broken by the clang- 
ing of the great bells, as they rung out the 
small hours, now fell on the city. The 
watcher had no struggle with sleep, for new 
thoughts were busy in her brain, and the 
great questions of life, death, and eternity 
were sounding in her ears. “ Can it be/* 
she asked herself, “ that God has hidden any- 
thing from me that He has revealed to these 
poor, ignorant creatures ? May it not be pos- 
sible after all that I, who know so much, and 
who have done so much, may have overlooked 
some of the great truths of the Bible ? How 


56 Mother West's Neighbors . 

is it that this weak and timid child has 
risen above death, trampled it under her 
feet ; and that I who am so brave, so self- 
reliant, tremble at the toll of a funeral bell 
and shrink from the sight of an open grave ? ” 

And at these thoughts her heart turned 
sick. She strove to drive them away by re- 
peating snatches of sacred poetry, and pas- 
sages from the Scripture ; but in vain. Death 
had a sting for her, and the grave a victory 
over her spirit ; and she felt it as never be- 
fore. Her high spirits, her carnal nature, 
and her unceasing activity had generally 
kept these things at bay. But now her soul 
was troubled ; and she felt that philosophy 
was powerless to give her the simple trust 
of this sick young girl. Her faith had 
failed her, and she was afloat on a sea of 
doubt. 

It seemed as if the morning would never 
dawn, and drive away the shadows from her 
soul. Her beautiful fabric of purity and good- 
ness had vanished, and she felt herself without 
one claim to heaven. 

She set forth soon after breakfast, as Mary’s 


Margaret Bell, 


57 


messenger to Guptil Alley. There by the 
high, flower-screened window, she heard, as if 
for the first time, — 

“ The old, old story 
Of Jesus and His love/' 

and her proud nature was so humbled that she 
asked for guidance in the way of life. She told 
of her pride which had refused to accept a free 
salvation ; and of her self-righteousness which 
had blinded her to the need of a Saviour. She 
spoke with tears of her cruel effort the night 
before to shake the trust of a dying child. 
She was not there as a patron, but as a beggar 
for life and peace. 

Mother West’s theology had few points, and 
these she stated in plain terms thus : — 

“We are all sinners, estranged from God 
and holiness. 

“ God has sent Jesus Christ to deliver us 
from our sins, by bearing them in His own 
body on the tree. 

“ We, who willfully remain in rebellion against 
God, will be denied His presence and the joys 
of heaven. 

“ A full and free salvation, and glory, be- 
yond our power to conceive, will be the eternal 


58 


Mother West's Neighbors. 


portion of those who accept Jesus Christ, 
and become one with Him, in spirit and in 
labor.” 

Margaret Bell would not promise to believe, 
but she did promise to read God’s Word, and 
to ask for light from on high; and she begged 
permission to repeat her visit to this humble 
room, so like heaven it seemed. 

On leaving, she quietly slipped a small gold 
piece into Mother West’s hand. The old lady 
looked at it in surprise, and returning it 
said, — 

“ No, my dear lady, I do not need this. My 
bread is given and my water is sure, and I 
have few other wants. Use this for the poor. 
I thank you for your visit and hope to see you 
soon again. Farewell.” 

The calm self-possession and quiet dignity 
of this humble woman rebuked the pride of 
Margaret as nothing else could have done ; and 
she went to her home, feeling herself less than 
the least of God’s creatures ; hungry without 
bread, and thirsty without water. She had 
not been allowed even to buy the interest and 
the prayers of the noble woman she had taunt- 
ingly classed among tramps and beggars. 


VI. 


COUSIN GERALD. 

IV /T ARY LINCOLN was slowly coming 
■*■*-*■ back from the gates of death, beside 
which she had seemed for months to be stand- 
ing, and reaching out again for the flowers of 
earth that were blooming around her. The 
world seemed as if newly created for her joy, 
and she felt that every one she knew must 
sympathize in her gladness. 

What then was her disappointment when 
her cousin, who, since the close of the war, and 
the loss of his father’s property, had been as a 
brother, returned home on his college vacation 
with a heart so opposed to all he had heard, as 
scarcely to rejoice in her recovery. 

Cousin Gerald was one of those kind, genial, 
merry fellows whom everybody loves ; but he 
was now at that disagreeable age when he felt 
that he was the wisest man in the world, that 
his college was the only one in the country. 


60 Mother West's Neighbors . 

and that his family and friends made up all 
that was worth calling “ society.” To this 
boyish conceit he added the most ludicrous 
dignity, which made him seem not a little im- 
perious when laying down his views of what 
was right and proper. 

Unfortunately for him the Lincolns had 
shared in his high opinion of himself, and 
really, almost without knowing it, had regarded 
him as an authority on many points. 

He had now returned half a head taller, a 
great deal handsomer, and nobody can tell how 
much wiser, than when he left home nine 
months before. He had closed his Sophomore 
(wise fool) year, and felt himself a Solomon in 
a silly world. 

His pride had been touched by the accounts 
his aunt had given him from time to time of 
Mary’s instructors, and the effect of their les- 
sons ; and he had now come home to annihilate 
them, with a breath, and to wake his pretty 
cousin up to the charms of the life she was 
soon to enter. 

Sarcasm and jesting were Gerald’s keenest 
weapons, and with these he opened fire on the 


Cousin Gerald . 


6 1 


family before he had been an hour in the 
house. 

“ Well, Molly, let ’s hear the history of the 
Beggars’ Crusade,” he cried, laughing. “Will 
Dayton got it all from his sisters, and such a 
story as he made out I never heard before. 
Come tell me as your father confessor what 
these lunatics did and said when you were de- 
lirious with fever, and your mother crazy to 
please you.” 

“Nothing, Gerald, but what was wise and 
kind. I was in great trouble, and they, having 
the comfort I needed, brought it to me,” re- 
plied Mary. 

“ Well, do join a respectable church, if you 
join any, and don’t be led about by the nose by 
the low and vulgar, child.” 

“ I don’t know any low or vulgar people, 
Gerald.” 

“Will Dayton says there ’s an old black 
dwarf — a sort of fortune-teller, and an old 
witch of a woman, and a set like them, who 
have had the run of the house, and been sup- 
ported by your parents for months, because 
you, in your weakness, liked to hear their old- 
fashioned songs or psalms.” 


62 Mother West's Neighbors . 

Mary looked pained, but simply replied, 
“You do not know these people, Gerald, or 
you would not dare to speak of them so/’ 

“ Dare ? ” cried the independent young gen- 
tleman ; “you don’t suppose I am afraid of 
them, do you ? ” 

“ No, but I hope you have a fear of God that 
will prevent you from scorning those He 
loves,” said Mary. 

“ Well, puss, that is rich ! ” cried the wise, 
wise man. 

“ Gerald,” said Mrs. Lincoln, “ you honor 
your mother’s memory, and her judgment, and 
you remember her feelings the last year of her 
life, when none of us understood her.” 

“Certainly, auntie, that’s just what I am 
thinking of. When she was sick and nervous 
the blacks took possession of her — bodily 
and spiritually — and made an enthusiast of 
her.” 

“ What was she before, Gerald ? ” asked 
Mary. 

“ Well, we called ourselves as good as any- 
body, and went to church every Sunday morn- 
ing, and always brought the minister home to 


Cousin Gerald . 


63 


dinner. When the ‘good days’ came round, 
we trimmed up and read our lessons like other 
folks, and there was no reason for poor mamma 
feeling as she did, that she had wasted life, and 
misled her boys, and so on, and so forth.” 

“Are you sorry she died as she did, Ger- 
ald ? ” asked his aunt. 

“ I am glad she was happy — dear mother ” 
— he added with a sigh, but recovering him- 
self, he said, “ I think there ought to be fair 
play in religion as well as everywhere else.” 

“ Why, what do you mean, Gerald ? ” 

“ Well, you know very well what good terms 
we were on with our clergyman then, father 
almost supported him and the little church too ; 
and he used the horses when he pleased, and 
brought his friends to the house, and felt as if 
he was, as they say of ministers who wait on 
men about to be hung, ‘our spiritual adviser.’ 
And yet when dear mamma got weak and nerv- 
ous, she never sent for him, but turned to old 
Molly and Parson Jumbo — you remember 
them — and pinned her faith to their sleeves, 
and died happy. That ’s like sending for a 
surgeon when you prick your finger, and call- 


64 Mother West's Neighbors. 

ing for an old granny when your arm is to be 
amputated. I knew very well that our clergy- 
man felt it, for at the funeral all he could say 
was, ‘ Her attendants tell us, so and so.’ ” 

“Did auntie refuse to see her minister in 
her sickness ? ” asked Mary. 

“ Oh no, he went into her room many times, 
and often read a prayer or a bit of poetry to 
her, but he never seemed to know what to say 
to her.” 

“ Ah, Gerald, I fear he had not experienced 
what she had. He should have studied theol- 
ogy with Parson Jumbo, perhaps,” said Mrs. 
Lincoln, smiling. 

“ He could find men less wise in professors* 
chairs,” replied Gerald. He was a shrewd old 
fellow, and a truly good one, too. He used to 
pray as if he was inspired — like one of ‘ de 
old Probbits,’ as he called them.” 

“ I Ve no doubt I should take him right into 
my circle, if he were here,” said Mary, smiling. 

“No doubt you would, and be more honored 
than by countenancing these designing old 
frauds.” 

“ Do you know Mother West, Gerald ? ” 


Cousin Gerald \ 6S 

“ No, my dear, nor do I want to,” replied the 
young man. 

“ That ’s not manly, to condemn people on 
hearsay. You should benr her talk and sing!” 
exclaimed Mary. 

This was too much, and Gerald broke out 
into a roar of laughter. 

“ Do you really think she could teach me, 
Molly ? ” 

“ Yes, Gerald, I do.” 

“ I ’d like to see her try it ! I 'll go there 
and hear her gabble as soon as I ’m rested. I 
like characters, and know I ’ll find sport there. 
Where does she live ? ” 

“ I shall not tell you if you are going to 
make sport of her, because she ’s old and 
poor.” 

“I’ma gentleman, Molly ; I should never let 
her know what was in my mind.” 

“ Well, go there with a message from me, as 
mamma’s dear friend did,” said Mary. 

“ I ’m afraid to go ; there seems to be a 
magic about the old lady. She throws out her 
net, and catches old and young, rich and poor, 
ignorant and learned ; and who can tell but 
5 


66 Mother West's Neighbors. 

you might see me wriggling among her vic- 
tims.” 

“ You are afraid of a poor old saint, then ? ” 
said Mrs. Lincoln. 

“ Indeed, I am not ; give me a pail of hot 
soup, and let me go at once on my errand of 
mercy. If I go as a patron, she will not feel 
at liberty to catechise or advise me.” 

“ Take her that bouquet, Gerald, and give 
her my love,” said Mary. 

“ Better send her a loaf of bread and lump 
of cheese. That’s just like sentimental school- 
girls. I know a girl who worked a mouchoir 
case for another one who looked as though she 
had n’t a mouchoir to put in it.” 

“ I don’t agree with you, Gerald. Mother 
West and many others whom we call ‘poor 
people,’ have enough to eat and to wear, but 
they can never buy a book, a little picture, or a 
flower ; and are more grateful for them than 
for ‘ bread and cheese.’ I gave Kitty McCosh 
a bouquet on her birthday, and when it was 
withered she hung it up to dry, and says she 
shall ‘ keep it all her life for the love o’ me.’ ” 

“ She worships it — the silly thing — because 


Cousin Gerald \ e? 

a lady condescended to give it to her. I 'll 
quiz her, too." 

“ You had better take care how you do it, for 
she 's as sharp as you are, to say the least of it. 
She manages that ‘ court,' parents and chil- 
dren, and she 's begun on the landlord now ; " 
said Mrs. Lincoln. “ I expect we shall have 
that nuisance removed, or turned into a bless- 
ing. Your uncle says that Mother West and 
Kitty Me Cosh would raise the value of real 
estate of that class, wherever they went. It 
would amuse you to see Kitty marshaling a 
troop of boys and girls on Wednesday and 
Saturday afternoons, and cleaning up the alley. 
She takes the hoe and rake and broom, and 
leads off, and they all follow her. And when 
the work 's over she seats the boys on the rail 
before her window, and the girls on the steps 
of the houses, and makes them presents, and 
gives them lessons." 

“ Do you think she ’d give me one ? " 

“ Yes, if you handled the hoe in a way to 
suit her," replied Mrs. Lincoln. “You may 
laugh at Kitty McCosh, but if she does n’t 
make her way in life I shall be surprised. She 


68 Mother West's Neighbors . 

ought to have more advantages of school than 
she has yet had.” 

“ I ’ll look into her case when I go there, and 
perhaps I may become her patron,” said Gerald, 
with an air of mock benevolence. 

The next day, however, his curiosity to see 
this strange “ magical matron ” rose to a fever 
heat, and he visited her, as he said, with obla- 
tions of flowers and currant jelly. 

He had promised to meet a classmate in half 
an hour. But the young man waited an hour 
at Mrs. Lincoln’s, and then went away and re- 
turned in another hour, and still Gerald was 
not there. 

When he did come, he was in a very quiet 
mood, and said little about his visit at first. 

“ How did Mother West strike you, Gerald?” 
asked Mary. 

“With surprise. I thought she would fall 
down and worship me for your sake, if not for 
the honor of the visit. She was very cordial 
and pleasant ; but I felt the moment I met her 
eye as if she were a duchess, and I a grocer’s 
boy come to serve her.” 

“ How much fun did you get there ? ” asked 
his aunt. 


Cousin Gerald. 


69 


“ None ; she disarmed me at the first.” 

“ How?” 

“ When I told her I was Mrs. Lincoln's 
nephew, she smiled, and asked me at once if I 
had a mother. And before I knew it myself, 
I had got into the story of her life and death, 
and — well, you know, auntie, how the thought 
of mamma always softens me, and drives away 
my nonsense. I do really think Mrs. West is 
a wonderful woman. One could not patronize 
her.” 

“ You did not’ feel disposed to offer her a 
loaf of bread and a lump of cheese,” said 
Mary. 

“ Don’t allude to that again. I had not seen 
her when I indulged in such nonsense. Why 
does not uncle try to find her a better home ? ” 

“ She has reasons for living there, and per- 
haps she is doing more good than she could do 
anywhere else,” replied Mrs. Lincoln. 

“ I should like to do something for her, she 
talks so much as mother used to at the last. I 
felt almost as if I had found a grandmother, 
she expressed such an interest in me. How 
fond she is of flowers. I ’ve promised to go 


70 Mother West's Neighbors. 

back to-morrow to see a lily that will be in 
bloom. How strange that a person who earns 
her bread can have any heart for such things 
as flowers ! ” 

“ She has a heart for everything that is 
lovely ; and that is why she takes an interest 
in you and Mary,” said Mrs. Lincoln, smil- 
ing. 

Mrs. West's influence, which she never 
counteracted by rudely assailing people's pri- 
vate feelings, or even their foolish prejudices, 
was now to spread beyond Guptil Alley, and 
beyond her respectable neighbors, and to be 
felt among young men preparing for the battle 
of life. 

She had thrown a jewel into the sea, when 
she moved to her high room in that poor alley ; 
and now the circles it had caused were widen- 
ing day by day, never to be lost till they should 
touch the silver sands on the other shore. 


VII. 


MR. JESSOP. 

TV j\ R. JESSOP knew everything. He knew 
^ ^ the Bible was got up by men who were 
paid for it. He knew the world made itself 
and was kept going by the fire and steam in- 
side of it. He knew the stars were sparks, and 
nothing more, for he had often seen them go 
out. Some folks said the sun stood still, but he 
knew better, and “ guessed he had eyes in his 
head.” He ’d seen it rise in the east and set in 
the west ever since he was born. So he knew 
astronomy was a humbug ! 

He knew that when men died they went to 
dust, and that was the last of them, and the 
reason ministers preached about souls was so 
as to scare folks and get their living out of 
them. 

He knew that Newton invented lightning- 
rods wrong, or else he ’ d have done it so as not 
to let lightning strike at all. 


72 Mother Wests Neighbors . 

He knew the world was moving backwards, 
that folks did n't know half as much as they 
did fifty years ago, and he knew everything 
was going wrong in the government, and had 
been a long time. 

Everything Mr. Jessop owned was just right 
and could n't be improved — from his patient 
wife and rude sons — whom he was always 
blaming at home — to his old house with 
its untidy grocery, his steeple-crowned hat, 
pointed boots, and swallow-tail-coat ! 

Mr. Jessop was a prophet. He knew every- 
thing before it happened, and could always say, 
“ I told you so." 

Once, however, he had to say, “ I could n't 
have believed it ! " and that was when he found 
the liquor law was being enforced on “ respect- 
able folks." He “ knew what was right," and 
he knew it was an outrage to tell a man what 
he may and what he may not buy or sell or 
drink ! He knew that “ nobody’s rights were 
thought worth looking after now but black 
folks', but he, for one, meant to let them know 
that he was ‘ free and equal ' if he was white ! 
He hated negroes so that he would n’t do any- 
thing for them but sell them liquor ! " 


Mr. Jessop. 


7 3 


Mr. Jessop had been a sort of connecting 
link between the high and low who lived in 
such unfortunate proximity in that neighbor- 
hood. He knew everybody, and could always 
help a gentleman to a laborer, or a laborer to 
an employer ; and if every scandal between 
maid and mistress was not discussed over his 
counter, he regarded himself defrauded of his 
rights ! 

There was a very narrow, dark, and dirty 
passage-way which led from Guptil Alley into 
Mr. Jessop’s yard, a board having, as he said, 
been villainously broken out of his fence for 
the purpose. He, however, never inquired for 
the “ villain ” who did it, nor yet did he close 
up the gap. 

But now that he had been fined twice and 
fancied he saw a policeman’s eyes at every 
dingy pane of his store windows, he had risen 
in his might and resolved he ’d “ do some- 
thing." 

There was a wreck of a lawyer, named — as if 
in irony — Joy, who spent his evenings behind 
Jessop’s desk making charges and bills ; and 
whom Jessop called “ My lawyer.’’ He could 


74 Mother West's Neighbors. 

not live without “ spirit,” and he could not buy 
it, so he was bound by Jessop with a chain as 
hard as any that ever bound the most wretched 
slave. He was naturally a gentle, kind-hearted 
man ; but Jessop could now have made him 
forge or rob, or do anything else, such was his 
power over him. 

This poor man scarcely ever crept out of his 
own narrow street, suffering from a conscious- 
ness of being ridiculously attired. Sometimes 
he had on an old coat of Jessop’s, too bad for 
the store ; and sometimes one of Mrs. Jessop’s 
stately ministers, which she had begged for 
him. He was sure to get on Bill Jessop’s 
flashy pants with the clerical coat, or the min- 
ister’s close-breasted vest with some cast off 
shooting-jacket. Things never came in a way 
to match ; and the sensitive creature knowing 
this, was always dodging people and slipping 
behind walls or into alleys to avoid the re- 
spectable who were once his friends. Poor 
Joy ! His was a beautiful soul, as God made 
it, but it was now marred by the hand of the 
spoiler, and imprisoned in a ruined body. He 
knew it all, he wept over it, but he “ could not 


Mr. Jessop. 


75 


help it, he was too far gone.” He was no 
longer his own keeper ! 

Mr. Jessop had now been goaded to mad- 
ness by “ the tyranny of the law,” and had re- 
solved to stand up for his rights, though it 
should cost blood — not his own, but that of 
his dupes — to gain them. Armed with a 
petition, which poor Joy had drawn up, and 
dressed in his best clothes, he began to call on 
his neighbors to “ge t signers.” 

The paper set forth the fact that the prop- 
erty holders in the west part of Ward 

were annoyed, and their real estate damaged 
by the nuisance known as “Guptil Alley,” a 
resort of thieves, drunkards, and blacks ! It 
appealed to the authorities to “ clean out the 
place ! ” and it threatened some terrible ven- 
geance if it were not done, showing the spite of 
Jessop and the mildness of poor Joy. 

Armed with this he called, one evening, on 
Mr. Lincoln, and set forth the danger of the 
neighborhood from fire, pestilence, and rob- 
bery, from such pests of society as these who 
“ burrowed there.” He proposed having the 
people driven out, the place renovated, and 


76 Mother West's Neighbors . 

turned to business purposes. He even sug- 
gested buying some of the “ filthy dens ” if he 
could get them cheap enough not to ruin his 
family in the attempt to aid the neighbors ! 

“Have you suffered from these people ?” 
asked the gentleman. 

“ Suffered ? indeed I have ! my estate is so 
run down by them that I ’m on the verge of 
beggary.” 

“You speak from what you know of them. 
I suppose they deal with you ? ” 

“ Yes, every soul of them.” 

“ Do they owe you much ? ” 

“ No ; not one cent. I would n’t trust them 
long enough to turn their backs.” 

“ Then they pay their honest debts, poor as 
they are ? ” 

“ They have to, if they deal with me.” 

“ Did you ever meet an old person named 
West, who lives there ? ” 

“ I reckon so. She had the impudence to 
come to my store and advise and urge me to 
change my business ! I set out to kick her 
into the street, but some way when I looked at 
her eyes I did not dare to touch her ! I ’most 


Mr. Jessop. 


77 


thought she was a witch, she wilted me down 
so ! I treated her as if she ’d been my mother, 
and I Ve been provoked with myself ever 
since.” 

“ I know that woman/’ replied Mr. Lincoln. 
“ She often comes here to see my family, and I 
believe she can help you if anybody can. Go 
and tell her your grievances, and see what she 
says. She has a great deal of influence with 
the owner of the houses.” 

“ I ’m ashamed to go,” said Jessop. 

“ You need not be ; tell her I sent you.” 

Jessop, hoping either to get some favor from 
the owner of the property or to frighten her 
into selling it low, made his way to Mother 
West’s room. 

He had a speech all ready, and expected to 
astonish her with his deep wisdom. But scarcely 
had he opened his lips in abuse of her poor 
neighbors, when she asked, “ And what have 
you done, friend, to improve their morals and 
their condition ? ” 

“They’re no kin of mine, and I’m in no 
way obligated to help them,” replied Jessop, 
testily. 


Mother West's Neighbors. 


78 


“ You are bound by the law of God to love 
them as you love yourself, but instead of that 
you have been working the ruin of some, and 
crushing the hearts of others among them ; 
and God will call you to account for it.” 

“ I did n’t come here to be abused, old wo- 
man ! ” cried Jessop, angrily. 

“ I don’t know what you came for, friend,” re- 
plied Mother West, kindly; “but I hope God 
sent you here for a blessing.” And then the 
dear old saint set his ignorance, his meanness, 
and his sin before him in a way that made him 
wish that he could get home without saying 
“ good-by ” or going down the stairway, — he 
was in such haste to get out of her sight. He 
said no more about “ low neighbors.” 

For the first time in his life he felt as if he 
knew nothing, or, as he expressed it to his 
wife, “ as if he ’d had all the starch taken out 
of him.” 

On his way home he squeezed the petition 
up into a ball and threw it in the gutter ; but 
after passing on a few steps he turned back, 
took it up and tore it into atoms, — he was so 
afraid somebody might pick it up and read it. 


Mr, Jessop. 79 

That was the end of poor Joy’s great peti- 
tion ! 

When Mr. Lincoln saw Mother West again 
he asked her if she could do anything for her 
small-souled neighbor Jessop. 

“ No,” she replied, “ I can do nothing for 
him. This kind goeth not out save by prayer 
and fasting ; a conceited and ignorant soul is 
harder to win than the vilest one to be found ! 
I have far more hope for poor ruined Joy than 
for Mr. Jessop.” 

As she said this a shadow passed over her 
face, and she added, “ Here I am again limiting 
the Holy One of Israel ! Is that poor weak 
man one to resist God? No. He is but a 
reed before Him, and I will ask and look for a 
power that will bring him down to the dust 
crying for mercy. I will give God no rest till 
He magnifies His name in the salvation of 
poor Jessop ! ” 

Many days passed over before they heard 
from the grocer again. Then he came to the 
old lady with a gay geranium in a pot, having 
seen, he said, that she was fond of flowers. 
He made a short neighborly call, and when he 


80 Mother Wests Neighbors . 

rose to go, he said, “ I was rude and ill-natured 
when I was here before ; and I have n’t felt 
easy about it. My wife thought I ought to 
come and tell you of it ; and — and — my wife 
wanted me to — to — ask you to pray for me.” 

“Is it only your wife, my friend, that sees 
your need of prayer ? Do you not feel it your- 
self ? ” 

“Well — yes — I feel miserable about Joy, 
and a good many other folks and things ; and 
I don’t know what to do ! ” 

“Then I am just the one to tell you. I 
know where to cast all burdens, for I have had 
many to weigh me down in life. Go to Jesus 
and throw all your sins and your sorrows at 
the foot of His cross. Give yourself to Him 
and He will take you, and then you ’ll know 
the real joy of life ; and by and by you ’ll know 
the peace that death can’t destroy.” 

“ Poor Joy, too, he ’s in trouble. He ’s given 
up drink, and he ’s nearly wild. I advised him 
last night to take just a little to calm his 
nerves, but he says he ’ll die first. He prayed 
all night last night, and my wife went into his 
room to carry him some coffee, and found him 


Mr. Jessop. 


81 


asleep on his knees. He sprung up and asked 
her if she was an angel come to save him. He 
has such a powerful respect for women that if 
any one can help him, they can. Poor Joy, he 
has n’t done anything but drink, — but I — do 
you think God will put it all to my account ? ” 

“ Yes, unless you repent.” 

“ I do from my soul ! And I wish all I 
owned was burned up ! ” 

“ No, all you hold is God’s. He will sanctify 
it to His use.” 

“ I wish I was black Tommy ; he ’s the hap- 
piest man I know ! ” 

“ You can have Tommy’s happiness without 
his deformity or his poverty. There is fullness 
yet in the fountain from which Tommy drew 
his joy. Go home now and spend the day with 
Jesus.” 

“ I ’m afraid to leave you lest all my trouble 
comes back on me ! ” 

“ If you trust in me it surely will ; but not if 
you look to Jesus.” 

“ But He ’ll help me for your sake, not for 
mine.” 

“ He ’ll do it for His own name's sake. If I 


6 


82 Mother Wests Neighbors . 

can help you I will, and you may stay with me 
awhile.” 

“Jessop forgot the store — all but the “bar;” 
that lay like a live coal on his heart till he was 
enabled to receive that wondrous truth : The 
blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin — 
even the deep, dark crime of the rum-seller. 

And Jessop became a new man, as also did 
poor Joy, of whom we shall write again. 


VIII. 


POOR JOY. 

“ T)OOR Joy ! ” That had been for years 
■*- his only name. The virtuous and the 
pitiful uttered it with a sigh, the self-righteous 
with scorn, the inebriate — with whom he had 
never been a boon companion — with a scoff at 
“his lamin’ and his gintility,” and the rum- 
seller with a chuckle of delight ; for, whoever 
else might break his fetters, he was sure of 
“ Poor Joy.” He knew he had gone beyond 
the pity of men, and fancied he must there- 
fore be beyond the mercy of God. It seemed 
as if there was nothing in store for him here 
but a drunkard’s grave, and beyond ? Ah ! 
how few think of the unknown “ beyond ” of 
those whom they censure or scorn for their ill- 
doing ! 

We have now a kind word to say for the 
drunkard. He is not a fiend incarnate, “ a 
sinner above all the sinners in Christendom.” 


84 Mother West's Neighbors . 

The victim to the wine-cup may be no blacker 
in the eye of Heaven than some who walk 
upright in business circles, fill their seats in 
church, and have “ Esq.” written after their 
names. God may pity the first and despise 
the last. 

Were “the possessions” of which we read 
in the New Testament the result of a special 
power granted to evil spirits to distress and 
destroy men, which, like the miracles of mercy, 
have passed away ? or, were they merely what 
we see every day, the emissaries of Satan 
taking captive and sometimes destroying the 
weak and the helpless ? At any rate, there 
are many just such cases now. 

One of these “possessed” was poor Joy. 
In the earliest flush of manhood he had looked 
on the wine when it was red, forgetting the 
serpent that hides itself in every cup. But 
that was only “ a boyish error,” and he came 
out into life with bright prospects. A few 
years saw him in a flourishing practice for 
one of his years ; but alas, he added to his 
natural brilliancy by drinking. Still, “ he 
drank only as a gentleman.” But the tempter 


Poor yoy. 


85 


grew stronger and he grew weaker, till at 
length those who had led him into evil pointed 
the finger of scorn at him, and cried, “ Joy has 
ruined himself, — he drinks like a fool.” Be- 
fore he was thirty- two years old his office was 
shut and he was eating the bread of his wid- 
owed mother, who hid him tenderly away from 
the eyes of the world when it would have been 
a shame to him to be seen. He despised him- 
self for this meanness, and wept, and promised, 
after each new humiliation, that “ this should 
be the last ; ” and she always believed him. 

Oh the mystery of mother-love ! 

“ When o’er it passed a cloud of blame 
Its inner glory beamed the same.” 

Hearts are often slow in breaking, but an- 
guish such as hers, with hope deferred, does 
its work in the end. Joy’s mother died with 
her head upon his breast, with full faith in 
his promise to lead a new life, and to be as a 
father to his little sister whom he really loved. 

But we need not tell the sad story of a 
cheerless home, and the child whom neighbors 
often fed and sheltered, till an indignant 
grandfather removed her to his country home, 


86 Mother West's Neighbors . 

and “left Joy to shift for himself.’ ” It is the 
old tale of rising and falling, resolving and 
breaking resolutions. 

There was now no door in all the wide 
world open to him ; no lip to smile at his 
coming, no eye to weep over his falling. He 
was alone. He made one more effort to re- 
gain his character, and to get business ; and 
in doing so fell into the merciless hands of 
Jessop. He was to keep his books, and col- 
lect his liquor bills ; and in return was to 
have a room in a house he owned, and “all 
the spirits he wanted ! ” 

Sometimes Joy got a little decent business, 
and then his sensitive spirit saved itself tor- 
ture by dropping money into Jessops yawning 
till, instead of collecting it from the starving 
wives of inebriates. 

Joy had never yielded to the coarseness 
with which the demon of strong drink so 
generally sullies the souls of his victims. 
The ribald song, the vulgar jest, and the im- 
pious oath, were always offensive to his ear ; 
and even when stupid with liquor he would 
flee from those in the same condition, and 


Poor Joy. 


87 


shut himself up in his room, and weep over 
his broken vows. Sometimes he would call 
out in the darkness to his mother to break 
his fetters, and ask why God had scorned her 
prayers, — he dared not pray himself. 

One night he sat alone, and in the darkness, 
the tempter whispering in his ear the most 
awful suggestions of which he is capable. 
“ Why drag on a life like this, making still 
deeper your final condemnation ? Your life is 
your own, why not make an end of it ? ” 

Joy hailed the thought as if it had been a 
savior. 

His hand was on his razor when he heard 
the wily touch of Jessop on his door, and the 
words, whispered in the gloom, “Tom Lake's 
father has been with him all day. He brought 
loads of good things from the farm. Tom has 
signed the pledge, and the old man has given 
him a nice silver watch, and left some money 
with his wife. He goes in the eight o’clock 
train, and if you demand payment from Lake, 
I should n’t wonder if his wife makes him 
give up that watch. I never saw a woman 
that hated a debt as she does ! ” 


88 Mother West's Neighbors . 

Poor Joy’s first impulse was to say that his 
last deed of that kind was done, and that his 
day of sin was ended ; but before he could 
command his voice his fear of Jessop returned, 
and, like a frightened dog in the presence of a 
cruel master, he dropped his head, drew his 
slouched hat over his ears, and went out into 
the storm, followed to the head of Guptil 
Alley by his master. As Jessop turned to 
leave him, Joy drew a sigh that ended in a 
groan. 

“ Come, come, don’t be a fool now, and lose 
your high reputation for a collector, Joy!” 
exclaimed Jessop in a cheery voice. Come 
round if you have good luck, and we ’ll have 
a glass of hot punch together. Mrs. J.’s gone 
to her prayer-meeting to-night, and will be 
none the wiser. Ha, ha !” 

“ I would n’t deceive that merciful woman 
for a barrel of punch — the cursed stuff ! ” 
Mrs. Jessop knows the worst of me, now, and 
she always shall ! I dreamed last night that 
I heard her and my mother praying for my 
soul, and as long as I heard their voices I saw 
the gate open — as if God could n’t shut it 
while they prayed ! ” cried Joy. 


Poor yoy. 


89 


“ Here, Joy ! wake up ! what are you talk- 
ing about? You’re losing your senses, a’n’t 
you ? ” shouted Jessop, giving him a smart 
push. 

“I suppose I am,” sighed Joy. "It is eight- 
een years ago to-night — Commencement Day 

— a freshman, that I first tasted ardent spirits 

— the curse of my life, that will cost me my 
soul ! ” 

" Pho, pho ! ” cried Jessop. " Be a man now 
like me, and go after that watch,” he exclaimed, 
as he turned his steps homeward. 

Which of these two was the greater sinner ? 

Again Joy groaned as he stepped into the 
shadow to watch for the departure of the old 
man whom God had sent as a delivering angel, 
from the pure hills and the free air of New 
Hampshire. 

Nor did he wait long. An old man soon 
appeared at one of the doors with a carpet- 
bag in his hand, singing in the faintest possible 
tone, — 

“ What though the seed lie buried long, 

It shan’t deceive our trust.” 

“ What seed ? ” cried Joy, hardly knowing 
what he said. 


90 Mother Wests Neighbors. 

“ The prayers of the righteous dead for a 
wandering son/’ replied the old man, hardly 
stopping, in his haste, to look at the speaker. 

When he had gone Joy stood as if paralyzed 
for a moment, overwhelmed by the question, 
“ Shall I add one more to my daily sins, or 
shall I by one enormous crime end my sinning. 
I’m afraid of Jessop,” he whispered, “ but I ’m 
more afraid of a holy God. Where are the 
prayers of the righteous dead for me ? ” 

He walked up the alley, entered a door 
stealthily, and crept up-stairs, as he had done 
more than once before, towards the poor attic 
into which rum had driven Tom Lake’s family. 

As he passed a door that was ajar, he heard 
a sweet voice utter these words, and they were 
all he heard although a woman still went on 
reading, “Whom Satan has bound, lo, these 
eighteen years ! ” 

Joy halted, he turned his steps and went 
home, saying, “ That is me whom Satan has 
bound, and whose fetters can never be broken ! ” 
He was thenceforth for days like the man in 
the iron cage, a victim of despair, and Jessop 
had to hear his story, although it was at the 


Poor Joy . 91 

time when his soul was bent on demolishing 
“ that alley.” 

We will not portray those dreadful days, 
nor dwell on Satan’s wiles with the prostrate 
man. We will only tell of the mercy of an 
humble woman that saved a soul from death, 
and of the wonder-working power of God 
which gave to her husband’s victim the glory 
of bringing him to penitence and pardon. 

After Jessop’s visit to Mother West, of which 
we told our readers before, Joy was induced to 
go there for sympathy and advice. And he 
went, a most haggard and forlorn creature, 
with despair pictured in every line of his fine 
face. 

“ Do you know anything about God, and his 
Son Jesus Christ, my dear friend ? ” was the 
first question of his aged hostess. 

“Yes, I was brought up in the fear of the 
Lord ; but I have cast away fear, restrained 
prayer, and am given over to Satan to be 
bound by him forever,” was the mournful 
answer. 

“ Who told you so ? ” 

“ My own heart.” 


92 Mother West's Neighbors. 

“ What kind of a heart have you, my friend ? ” 

“An awful one, deceitful above all things, 
and desperately wicked,” replied Joy, with deep 
feeling. 

“ And yet you take its testimony before that 
of a covenant-keeping God ! He says though 
your sins be as scarlet, He will wash them 
away. He says whosoever cometh shall in no 
wise be cast out ; that He came into the world 
to save the chief of sinners. But your poor 
sinful heart tells you that this is not true ! Do 
you believe Satan is stronger than God ? ” 

“ Oh, no, I believe God has all power in 
heaven and on earth, and that He can save me 
if He will, but” — 

“ My son,” said the old woman tenderly, 
“ there is no ‘ but ’ in this matter. God is as 
willing as He is able to save you. Jesus is 
here beside us now, though our poor eyes see 
Him not, and He holds out his arms to you, 
His repenting child, and tells you the wounds 
He bore on Calvary were for you, if you will 
but accept His mercy. What will you do about 
it?” 

“ If I could but know it I would fall down 


Poor yoy. 


93 


and kiss His feet and lay down my life for Him. 
Oh, I am so sick of sin, so hungry after holi- 
ness ! ” cried the wretched man. 

“ You do not long for Christ as He longs for 
you, poor child. Venture on His mercy and 
He will manifest Himself to you in a way 
which shall amaze the ungodly world. He has 
already humbled, and, I hope, saved through 
you, the man who has ruined so many; and 
who can tell what stores of blessed work 
He has laid up for you to do. Trust Him, 
though you should die at His feet.” 

And Joy replied, “ Though He slay me, yet 
will I trust Him.” 

The days of miracles are not ended. Poor 
Joy was led by this humble woman’s faith to 
Jesus, and saved not only from his besetting 
sin, but also from the temptation to commit 
it. 

He has been for years leading an honorable 
Christian life, and working, as few men have 
ever worked, for the emancipation of slaves in 
his old prison-house. His testimony is this : 
“ From the hour that, in humble penitence, I 
cast myself on the infinite mercy of Christ, my 


94 Mother West's Neighbors. 

desire for ardent spirit was utterly quenched, 
and I loathed the very smell of it. I believe a 
miracle as great as that on the man who dwelt 
among the tombs has been wrought on me. 
No power but God’s could have done this.” 

This is not a base fiction. Joy is sitting to- 
day clothed and in his right mind, among his 
equals ; therefore let no one limit the power of 
the Almighty by saying that “ the confirmed 
drunkard is beyond hope!” The prayer of 
faith and the undying energy of Christian love 
can remove even this mountain of sin. 

Oh, the wrecks that lie about us on every 
hand ! The young, the gifted, and the beloved 
dashed on the rocks, and tossed among the 
billows ! Who shall rescue them ? If good 
and resolute men, in their lack of faith, draw 
back, if shrewd politicians stagger before this 
work, let women, strong in the might of love, 
take to the boats, and prove that none are lost 
who desire to be saved. 


IX. 


MISS SIBYL THORNE. 

MONG that large class whose mission 



^ ^ seems to be keeping other folks at work, 
was Miss Sibyl Thorne, a lady of small prop- 
erty and great ambition. She could not have 
shone in the halls of fashion had she wanted 
to, but in her own circle she was bound to be 


felt ! 


She lived in a very modest house, with a 
little, wizened old sister, who always wore a 
shawl, summer and winter, and coughed in- 
cessantly, making about as much noise as a 
bird might be supposed to make if in a seated 
and lingering consumption ; and crept about 
as softly as a mouse, always carrying her 
hand on her heart, and wearing a smile, for 
which those who knew nothing of her inner 
peace saw no cause. 

As the ladies kept no servant, and as Miss 
Sibyl was always on the street or at some 


9 6 Mother West's Neighbors. 

public meeting, it was presumed by the neigh- 
bors that the work of the house was done 
by the poor little woman, who fluttered about 
as if determined not to die till it was all done 
and well done. 

This home kingdom was small, but it boasted 
a queen and a slave ; for it takes neither 
wealth nor blood to make an autocrat, nor 
yet poverty nor ignorance to make a slave. 

Miss Sibyl’s mission lay out-of-doors ; and 
that settled, the conclusion was plain enough 
that “ Miss Thorne’s” lay within doors. The 
latter had many sick days, but that never kept 
her sister in. “ Bed was the best place, then,” 
she said, “and if people rang at the door 
they must just ring, that was all ! They cer- 
tainly could n’t expect the sick to rise from 
their beds to let them in.” 

Many a time has this patient little saint 
craved a drink of cold water, when too ill to 
rise and get it, while her energetic sister — 
whom her acquaintances regarded as an ani- 
mated subscription paper — was wearying her- 
self and everybody else out, to buy melodeons 
for the Hottentots who could n’t play them, 


Miss Sibyl Thorne . 


97 


and sewing machines for cannibals who had 
nothing to sew ! But that was consistent with 
Miss Sibyl’s theory of an “ out-of-door work.” 

Miss Sibyl held very decided views of her 
own on many points, especially on the manner 
of dispensing charity. No circumstances jus- 
tified giving at the door, nor indeed, anywhere, 
personally. She was society-mad. Had you 
asked her for a pin, she would almost have pro- 
posed that you “ wait till a society could be 
formed for the aid of the poor and pinless in 
the community.” 

But all the societies, to meet with her pat- 
ronage and favor, must be formed on her plan 
and be largely under her control. 

The only way then that the little imprisoned 
subject, Miss Thorne, ever got an opportunity 
to relieve her generous heart, was by beckon- 
ing to a passing baker, purchasing loaves and 
distributing them to hungry children, — whom 
she placed almost under bonds of secrecy, — 
in her sister’s prolonged absences. 

Every case of want brought to Miss Sibyl 
by others was “ an imposition ; ” only those 
she herself discovered and dug from the mine 
7 


98 Mother West's Neighbors . 

of woe were genuine. She seemed almost to 
hate those she called “ irresponsible beggars.” 

Every year or two Miss Sibyl mounted some 
new hobby, rode down all opposers, and had 
“a smash-up,” as the boys say; after which 
she would sink down discouraged in her efforts 
for the lower classes, and rest a week before 
setting out on a fresh campaign. 

She had just given up a “ Mission for Or- 
gan-Grinders/' because those wandering trou- 
badours had proved themselves ungrateful sin- 
ners ; and was casting about for a new field. 
She was half inclined to try the monkeys, as 
more hopeful than their masters, when some 
one remarked that there was in the immediate 
vicinity of her own house and church a neigh- 
borhood utterly neglected by those who were 
compassing sea and land elsewhere to make 
converts to Christianity. Guptil Alley, Har- 
per's Place, and Billiard Row, came within this 
precinct, and formed a dark and stormy back- 
ground to the bright picture of wealth and 
prosperity around the fine park less than an 
eighth of a mile away. 

The idea of there being women at her door, 


Miss Sibyl Thorne. 


99 


who were neither Italians nor Irish, nor Cath- 
olics at all, but of her own race, who knew 
but did not obey the claims of the gospel, 
seemed new to her. She was sick of the de- 
ception and intriguing of those she had just 
been laboring for ; and she now mounted this 
new hobby with a spring! A new society 
must be formed at once, which she decided to 
call “ The Mission at our Door,” the motto of 
which should be, “ Beginning at Jerusalem.” 

She set forth one bright morning armed 
with a constitution, a pledge, and a subscrip- 
tion paper. The first and the third were to be 
signed by the patrons of the work ; the second 
by the recipient of their bounty. Among the 
first she favored with a call were Mrs. Lincoln 
and Mary, the latter of whom was rapidly re- 
gaining her vigor, and able to bear a hand in 
works of charity. They signed the constitu- 
tion, which provided for Sunday and sewing- 
schools, prayer and temperance meetings, and 
the paper which pledged the means to carry 
them on. 

Then Mary suggested, — as Miss Sibyl 
would need so many helpers, — that she call 
at once on Mother West for advice and aid. 


100 Mother West's Neighbors . 

On hearing that this was a poor old woman, 
living in an attic of a tenement house, the 
lady’s face expressed strong dissent from the 
suggestion. 

Mrs. Lincoln joined her daughter in the 
opinion that Mrs. West and Kitty McCosh 
would be valuable helpers in such a mission, 
as Mrs. West was honored and loved by all her 
neighbors ; while Kitty’s knowledge of every 
woman and girl in the neighborhood, and her 
magnetic power over them, would help her to 
fill up the school just as it did to clean and 
keep clean the alley which had once been a 
nuisance to the whole ward. 

But Miss Sibyl was shocked at the thought. 
“ These people cannot be benefited by their 
equals,” she said. “ They must look up with 
awe and reverence to those who work for them ; 
and that they will not do to the poor and ig- 
norant like themselves.” 

“ Mrs. West is not ignorant,” said Mary. 
“She has influenced not only her equals, but 
many who are regarded as her superiors, for 
good. I have reason to bless her for what she 
has done for me ; and neither my parents nor 
my cousins despise her.” 


Miss Sibyl Thorne . IOI 

“ I was surprised when I heard of those peo- 
ple coming to your house to sing,” said Miss 
Sibyl. “ There is so much danger of lifting 
them out of their place and making them im- 
pertinent. I have one rule with my pension- 
ers which I never break. I will visit and re- 
lieve them ; but they shall never come to my 
house. That is my castle, and it shall not be 
invaded by such people.” 

“ Mother West will never trouble you by 
visits, and I advise you to call on her at once 
before going through our church with your 
paper ; as everybody will suggest that the first 
thing/’ said Mrs. Lincoln. 

“ Well, I will call and get her to rally her 
neighbors for me, and perhaps make use of 
the girl you mention ; but I certainly shall not 
consult them, as if my plans were not formed 
beyond alteration already.” 

Neither lady said more than to give the di- 
rection to Mrs. West’s room, and to wish Miss 
Sibyl success in her new work, and she went 
her way. 

She laid the plan before Mother West, after 
saying with the tone and the air of a patron, 


102 Mother West's Neighbors . 

“ I ’m very glad, my good woman, to see your 
room so neat and yourself so tidy. Poverty is 
no excuse for filth.” 

A flush of color passed over the usually pale 
cheek of Mother West, but she took no notice 
of this rude remark. She simply asked the 
lady to be seated, remarking that this was a 
fine morning for a walk. 

Miss Sibyl opened her plan, and Mother 
West listened with eager eyes, for her heart 
was keenly alive to the wants of the neglected 
poor about her. 

“ You will help me,” said Miss Sibyl, “ to 
gather in the women into a sewing-school, 
where we can give them religious instruction 
at the same time we teach them to make the 
garments we give them ? ” 

“ Y es, I will do all in my power to help you. 
I will take a class, which I myself will gather, 
and my little friend Kitty McCosh will bring 
in, and look after half a dozen rude girls who 
have done little so far but play in the streets,” 
was the good woman’s reply. 

“ We probably shall not need such teachers 
as she,” replied Miss Sibyl coldly. “ My 


Miss Sibyl Thorne . 


103 


helpers will be ladies,” she added, with a look 
which said as plainly as words could have 
done it, “you and this McCosh girl are not 
ladies, and cannot work among them.” 

“Well, we will gather 'in the women and sit 
as scholars beside them, and let them see that 
we do not look down on them,” replied Mother 
West, meekly. 

“I can't see why they should think you 
would do so,” said Miss Sibyl, as she drew a 
long ruled paper — like a petition to Congress 
— from the depths of her philanthropic pocket. 

“ This is our pledge, and I want you to sign 
it,” she said. 

“ The constitution, is it ? ” 

“No; that and the subscription paper I offer 
to ladies who are to support the movement 
with money and effort. The ‘ pledge 9 is to be 
signed by the women we take into the privi- 
leges of the mission.” And then she went on 
to read a string of promises, by which the 
women entering the school were to bind them- 
selves not to drink, nor swear, nor use tobacco 
in any form ; not to sit on their doorsteps, or 
lean from their windows gossiping with their 


104 Mother Wests Neighbors . 

neighbors ; to keep their houses and their 
children neat, to throw no garbage in the 
court, and to have their husbands’ or fathers’ 
meals ready promptly when they returned from 
work ; to attend worship regularly with their 
families on the Sabbath, to maintain a religious 
government over their children, and, in fact, 
to be perfect housekeepers, neighbors, mothers, 
— to be model Christian women! “You are 
willing to sign that, I suppose ; and to ad- 
vise your neighbors to do the same ? ” she 
asked. 

“ I will sign the paper saying that I will en- 
deavor to do all this, but that will be easier for 
me than for most of my neighbors. Many of 
them are so overburdened with work for others, 
that it is hard to keep their own homes and 
little ones in order. Many of them cannot go, 
nor take their families to the house of God, 
for want of decent clothes to wear ; and still 
more of them have no inclination to do all this 
paper binds them to do, and I fear would make 
little effort to keep such a solemn pledge.” 

“ Then you think them beyond all hope of 
reform, do you ? ” asked Miss Sibyl, testily. 


Miss Sibyl Thorne . 105 

“ Indeed, I do not. I have seen too great a 
change in many of them to be so faithless. 
But I think to require little at first will be the 
best way to gain much in the end. I would 
advise that all this be requested of them (as a 
favor to the teachers, as well as right for them- 
selves) at their first gathering. ,, 

“Oh, I did not come to you for a plan to 
work by. This pledge was drawn up by myself 
with the sanction of three or four other philan- 
thropic ladies, and we intend to carry it out. I 
came to get you to present it to your neigh- 
bors ; will you do so ? ” 

“ I will see them as far as I am able, and bring 
them to your first meeting. Many of them 
are worthy women, dragged down to the dust 
by miserable husbands ; and while they are 
washing by daybreak, and ironing far into the 
night, to buy bread for their little ones, I 
should hardly like to make allusion to their un- 
tidy homes, or ask them to promise to attend 
church regularly with their families. If I had 
clothing and shoes to give them all, I might 
feel otherwise.” 

“They must be very delicate for people 


10 6 Mother West's Neighbors. 

in their circumstances,” replied Miss Sibyl, 
coldly. 

“ Some of them, who have been well brought 
up, are so, and their desire is to live respecta- 
bly. Their self-respect is not gone, but only 
their inability to live in accordance with it. 
They are very sensitive, and shrink from the 
eyes of strangers. They are not all coarse 
and wicked women, as you will see,” said 
Mother West. 

“ They must promise to come neat and clean 
to the sewing-school. They will be sent home 
at once, if they appear there otherwise,” said 
the philanthropist, sternly. 

“ I think you will have no trouble on that 
score, madam. Kitty McCosh can suggest this, 
kindly, because she will help them to carry it 
out. She will amuse their babies, run their 
errands, or wash their dishes, while they are 
washing their gowns, aprons, and collars,” said 
the old lady. 

“ Please let her do so. But, Mrs. West, you 
will give this McCosh girl to understand that 
we need nothing of her within the school, but 
to learn of her teacher,” said Miss Sibyl. 


Miss Sibyl Thorne . 107 

“ She can do great good without , madam ; 
such good as few of her years ever accom- 
plish ; and I think she will work without of- 
fense to either you or to her poor neighbors,” 
was the reply. 

Miss Sibyl went away with the very uncom- 
fortable feeling that Mother West had placed 
herself on a level with her, and would look on 
herself as one of the originators, or at least 
the advisers, of the movement. 

“But,” she said to her sister, who listened 
and never rebuked, “ that is always the way, 
with such people, ‘ Give them an inch and 
they ’ll take an ell/ She will soon find herself 
back in her own place if she tries to get up 
into any other.” 

A hall was hired, money secured ; and Miss 
Sibyl, supported on the right and the left by 
kindred spirits, presented herself one day be- 
fore some eighty poor women to form a sew- 
ing-school, as the first step in her work. 

But, alas ! she stood there like Boadicea, the 
warrior queen, rather than like a favored wo- 
man before her less favored sister ! Their 
eyes quailed before her, but their hearts were 


108 Mother West's Neighbors . 

strengthened by sight of the piles of cloths 
and flannel which promised warmth and com- 
fort for the coming winter. Miss Sibyl's spirit 
was greatly mollified by seeing Mother West, 
with a great buxom young girl, whom she took 
to be Kitty McCosh, sitting modestly among 
the women ; and she said in her heart, “ I 
brought her down to her right place ! ” 

The progress of “The Mission at our Door” 
will be the subject of another chapter. 


X. 


“THE MISSION AT OUR DOOR.” 

STORE, which had been altered into a 



hall for public evening entertainments, of 
the most unpretending order had been hired 
for Thursday afternoons. Pictures and motto 
cards for ornament and instruction had been 
hung on the walls, and a large cutting-table, 
and a chest for holding the materials and the 
work, showed that there was business as well 
as charity in the plan. 

As is usual in all movements for “ charity at 
home,” the people responded nobly ; and Miss 
Sibyl’s purse would not contain the money she 
received. She had deposited some of it in 
the bank before the school opened, even after 
the doubtful expenditure of a hundred dollars 
for sign and banner, which might have been 
deferred till success was sure. 

On the opening day of the school Miss 
Sibyl had rallied her dozen of teachers, se- 


iio Mother West's Neighbors . 

lected more for their position, we fear, than for 
their spirit or their zeal, and had written a 
note to the police station, requesting that one 
of the officers might meet them at the cor- 
ner where they should leave respectability for 
squalor and vice, and follow them at a respect- 
ful distance to see that they were not annoyed 
by the denizens of the neighborhood ; and then 
guard the hall while they were there. 

The policemen laughed at this nonsense ; 
“ a dozen women being afraid in broad day- 
light, in a place where a shout could be heard 
in a score of groceries and workshops.” But 
when they saw Miss Sibyl and her posse, some 
members of which were flounced and furbe- 
lowed, flaunting in plumes and glittering with 
diamonds, they “ did n’t wonder they wanted a 
guard.” 

The hall was half full of women whose ap- 
pearance surprised, perhaps disappointed, Miss 
Sibyl. With half a score of miserable excep- 
tions, the women were clean and bore no 
traces of vice. They were poor ; some of 
them were oppressed and abused, and had 
come there for help, sympathy, and a little sun- 


“ The Mission at our Door ': 


hi 


shine ; while a few needed no help, but had 
joined the school to show their less fortunate 
neighbors that it was not “ a pauper affair/’ as 
the paper which was read to them, and which 
very few of them had been willing to sign, had 
led them to suspect. 

Their names and residences were all put 
down in a book, a step which made some of the 
less virtuous a little suspicious ; a blue badge 
with “ M. A. O. D.” in gilt letters was pinned 
to their shoulders, and must be worn going and 
coming to the school, to let people know to 
whom they belonged ! 

One “ very rough woman ” declined the 
badge, saying she “ did n’t care to be collared 
like a dog ; ” while most of them accepted the 
harmless thing, either to wear or to carry away 
in their pockets. 

A policeman looked in, saw no danger, and 
went on his round. But very soon after the 
opening exercises Miss Sibyl saw a mob at the 
door, and faces pressed up against the glass ! 
So with two of her older helpers she went out, 
and in a trembling tone warned away those 
she had regarded as Catholic persecutors. 


1 12 Mother West's Neighbors . 

There was a cripple covered with shoe-strings, 
a little black dwarf, two or three women with 
babies in their arms, and half a dozen children 
— a formidable mob indeed ! 

“ My good people, we have nothing to eat 
here, we are only teaching poor women to 
sew,” said Miss Sibyl, in a tone which showed 
that she was ashamed of her foolish fears. 
“ Go away now, go away ! ” she added in a 
coaxing voice. 

“ I thought this ’ad been Mrs. West's school,” 
said the shoe-string man, “ and I cam’ to ask 
her would she haccept a gross o' shoe-strings 
to ’elp make ’er poor folk decent, ma’am.” 

“ Mrs. West is only one of our scholars, good 
man, but if you wish to make us a donation we 
shall accept it very gladly,” said the lady. 

So the old man pulled bunch after bunch of 
the strings from his shoulder, over which they 
hung, and passed them to Miss Sibyl ; who 
taking them, rewarded the sacrifice with, “ Go 
away now, my good man ! ” And away he 
went. 

Then the queer little black man — he whom 
Mother West had glorified by the name of 


The Mission at our Door ! 


“ Beautiful Tommy” — looked up eagerly in 
her face, and asked, “ Has n’t you got some- 
thing for me to do, missus ? I loves to work 
for de Lord.” 

We fear that Miss Sibyl was struck for the 
first time with the idea that this work was for 
the Lord. “ You can’t sew, can you, my poor 
fellow ? ” she asked. 

“ No, not women’s way ! but I can sweep 
and dust de hall, and run yer errands ; and if 
dere’s any woman in dar wid frettysom chil’n 
dat dey could n’t leave to home, I ’ll watch ’em 
on de sidewalk here.” 

“ I can’t have the school made a nursery, my 
poor man ; but I ’ll tell you what you may do : 
you may go to my house, io Waldron Terrace, 
and ask the lady there to send my reticule, 
which I forgot. But wait first, — how shall I 
know you are honest, and will bring it to me ? ” 

“ Ask Mrs. West ! ” cried Tommy, triumph- 
antly. Miss Sibyl did so, and the reply was, 
“ He ’s honest as the day, and one of the 
noblest men alive ! ” 

Sibyl smiled, and let “ the noble man ” do 
her errand. 


8 


1 14 Mother West's Neighbors. 

Scarcely had Tommy waddled off, when the 
thought flashed across her mind that such a 
strange-looking — she called it “ horrid-look- 
ing ” — man coming suddenly on poor, weak 
Miss Thorne, without any written order for the 
reticule, might alarm her. So in great haste 
she sent Kitty McCosh after him with an as- 
surance of his good character, to her sister. 

Tommy soon appeared at the school with the 
reticule ; but Kitty was seen there no more 
that day. 

In her usually sociable way, Kitty had stopped 
to make Miss Thorne a call, and give her an 
account of the way in which the school had 
been gathered in so short a time. “ I thought 
it would take half the season to get as many 
women,” Miss Thorne had said to Kitty. “ So 
it would, if we had n’t taken right hold and 
done it ourselves. Such folks are shy of la- 
dies, especially if they think they mean to boss 
them,” was the inelegant reply of Kitty. “ One 
of them flared up like a rocket,” she added, 
“ because one of the ladies who visited her 
wanted to look into her pantry and pot-closet, 
and told her they should come round at odd 


The Mission at our Door 


times and see whose house was the neatest, 
and give a premium. This woman is poor, but 
she ’s good, and knows a good deal. Her hus- 
band don’t do right ; and she ’s got a sick 
child. She said that lady talked just as the 
English ladies do in the story books, as if poor 
people were children to be watched and scolded, 
and had no self-respect. But I helped her ‘ fix 
up,’ and Mrs. West’s daughter took her sick 
child home for a change, and she’s having a 
lovely time at the school ! She cried when 
they sang the first hymn, it made her think of 
her old home so, and she was so glad to get 
out of that one dull room. I think it’s real 
hard for any one to be good who is shut up so, 
and works so hard, and has nobody to love 
them, don’t you ? ” 

Miss Thorne sighed, and said “ yes.” Poor 
thing, although she had a neat home and plenty 
to eat, she could enter into the feelings of these 
desolate workers. She wrought more, accord- 
ing to her strength, and was more shut out 
from anything that was cheerful, than half the 
women in “ The Mission at our Door ; ” and 
she had n’t the poor relief that most of them 
had in “ scolding out their troubles.” 


II 6 Mother West's Neighbors . 

“I like you better than your sister,” said 
Kitty, innocently, gazing into Miss Thorne's 
kind eyes. “ Why don't you come to the 
school to teach ? ” 

“ That shows how little you know of us, my 
child,” said Miss Thorne. “ My sister is al- 
ways on the wing, blessing somebody ; but 
I 'm a poor, frail creature, scarcely able to take 
care of myself. When the little work of the 
house is done (or rather half done, for I never 
finish it to my view), I 'm worn out, and ready 
for bed. So I can do little for myself or any- 
body else. These parlors should have been 
swept to-day ; but I did n’t feel quite equal to 
the effort.” 

“ Where 's your broom ? ” cried Kitty, spring- 
ing from her chair and turning up the skirt of 
her pink calico gown. “ How I should love to 
sweep such a handsome carpet ! ” 

“ Oh, we could n’t do that in the afternoon ! 
Some one might ring while we were all in con- 
fusion,” said Miss Thorne. 

“ Well, if they did we would n’t let them in,” 
replied Kitty, innocently ; for she did not know 
that half the rings at that door were never 
answered ! 


“ The Mission at our Door ” 117 

Before poor little Miss Thorne could rally 
force to resist, Kitty had found the broom and 
was calling for sheets to cover the fine things, 
— for plain as they seemed to Miss Sibyl, they 
were very grand in poor Kitty’s eyes. 

That carpet had not felt such a vigorous 
hand for many a year ; and when Miss Thorne, 
who had been banished from the dust, was 
called back, she could hardly believe that the 
work was well done. But on examining, as she 
was urged to do, every nook and cranny, she 
was satisfied. 

Next came the silk duster, the feather brush, 
and the other devices which the prim little 
lady had for ferreting out every particle of 
dust ; and soon piano, sofas, chairs, tables, 
what-nots, and their burden of knickknacks all 
shone with new brightness ; and yet Kitty was 
as fresh as if just from her humble pillow. 

“ There ! ” she exclaimed, “ this is just the 
way I fix up our neighbors when they are busy 
or sick ; only,” she added, recollecting herself, 
“ they have n’t half such nice things to fix with. 
Is n’t there anything else you want done ? ” 

“ Not to-day, thank you, unless on your way 


1 1 8 Mother West's Neighbors . 

home you would just carry a red flannel night- 
gown I’ve been making to a poor child in 
Apple Street, — but then, if you did, I ’d like 
you never to mention it. The child’s mother 
is a poor, shiftless creature, and might keep it 
comfortable if she would. Some people think 
shiftless folks ought not to be helped, but 
surely their poor children ought not to suffer. 
But don’t tell of this.” 

“ I ’ll carry it, and maybe I might draw the 
sick child out in a wagon some day ; sick chil- 
dren get so tired of the house ! I draw Jane 
Carr’s baby round to pay for the use of her 
wagon to draw other babies in.” 

“ But don’t you go to school, or have any- 
thing to do, child ? ” asked Miss Thorne. 

“ Oh yes, I go* to school, and earn nearly all 
my own clothes beside, by sewing buttons on 
to cards. But I do this in my play time,” said 
Kitty. 

When Kitty went away, Miss Thorne could 
not help pressing a kiss on her hard, rosy 
cheek, and as she did so she slipped a bright 
hair-ribbon into her hand, saying, “ I shall 
want you to come again, for you ’ve made me 


The Mission at our Door! 


feel as if I had been to your home and among 
your neighbors. I almost feel as if I had 
helped in cleaning up Guptil Alley ! The next 
time you draw out a baby, bring it here to see 
me. Good-by ! God bless you, my dear, good 
child ! ” 

When Kitty had deposited her red flannel 
night-gown, she looked at the great clock in 
the tower of St. John’s church, and saw to her 
amazement that the afternoon was nearly gone. 
So she ran home to her buttons, quite as bright 
and happy as if she had been all the time at 
“ The Mission at our Door.” 

When tea was over she went into Mrs. 
West’s to get the news from the school. 

“Why, Kitty, child, what became of you?” 
asked her friend. 

Oh, I ran an errand, you know,” replied 
Kitty, laughing. “ What for a school did you 
have?” 

“ A very pleasant one. The ladies sang and 
talked very kindly to us ; but when they began 
to cut work, they did n’t know how, poor things ! 
A garment for a woman had sleeves for a child ; 
and the skirts had bands big enough to take in 


120 Mother West's Neighbors. 

two women at once. But they saw it ; and one 
of them said she would hire a dressmaker to 
come with her next time ! I volunteered as 
modestly as I could to help that young lady 
with the bird in her hat, and she was very 
glad. They all saw I was at home with my 
scissors, and they asked me to be one of their 
cutters/’ replied Mother West. 

“ Then you shall have your name down 
among the grand ones,” cried Kitty. “ You 
shall not do the work and give them all the 
credit ! ” 

“ Little I care for that, Kitty ; but I think if 
I ’m there at the cutting-table the poor misera- 
ble ones will feel freer than if they had to go 
to one of those fine ladies, who knows poverty 
and sorrow only by name. But where have you 
been, child, that you did not come back ? ” 

“ I ’ve been away forming myself a new 
‘ Mission at our Door/ ” replied Kitty, laugh- 
ing ; “ but I can’t tell you where.” 


XI. 


MISS SIBYL AND MRS. CLAPPER. 

HE glory of “ The Mission at our Door,” 



like that of the mission for organ grind- 
ers, had faded before Miss Sibyl Thorne’s eye, 
and its poetry turned to sober prose, before the 
spring term closed. 

At the last session that lady laid out her 
grievances in due form before the women, ex- 
pressing more than a doubt as to whether they 
would ever gather there again in the same 
capacity. 

“ The ladies,” she said, “ are thoroughly dis- 
heartened by the disrespect of some of the 
women, the greediness of others. One woman 
had addressed her as ‘ You dear soul ; ’ another 
had demanded a dark calico dress in place of 
the pink one offered her ; a third had taken of- 
fense when questioned about not keeping her 
home in better order ; and several had mani- 


1 22 Mother West's Neighbors . 

fested a spirit of independence quite ridiculous 
in persons needing help.” 

Miss Sibyl also said that it had been her in- 
tention to shake hands with every woman at 
parting; but she did not feel that their con- 
duct as a whole would entitle them to that act 
of friendship ! 

If this had been a gathering of oppressed 
laborers’ wives and paupers in England, and 
Miss Sibyl had been a patronizing duchess, it 
might have passed off very well. But there is 
in the breast of the poorest American woman 
a feeling of self-respect which cannot be 
crushed out by the gift of a new gown or a 
bag of flour. These words were as a match to 
the magazine of pride in a score of poor hearts 
there, which manifested itself in different ways 
according to the temperament of the women. 

Several of them cried and sobbed as if their 
hearts were sorely wounded ; but others spoke 
to their neighbors words of defiance and scorn. 
“ ’ Deed then, nobody axed her to bring us here 
to taach us to sew and to sing ! ” cried an angry 
Hibernian, adding, “ She’s not such a dale 
richer nor we, but only a dale prouder ! ” 


Miss Sibyl a?id Mrs. Clapper. 123 

“ Ye're right,” replied her neighbor, with a 
scornful laugh. “ They says that she kapes no 
gerl any more than ourselves, only she ’s got an 
angel of a poor sick sister as drudges for her, 
and that ’s why her house is in better order 
than ours is ! Small bit o’ a lady is she ! ” 

“ I wish from my heart I had never accepted 
the cloth I have made up here, and if my life 
is spared I ’ll return it,” said a hard-working 
Yankee woman in an indignant tone. “ I ’m 
poor but I ’m honest, and no one shall twit 
my boys of having a beggar for a mother ! ” 

“ I ’m glad the school is done, for I ’m sick of 
being called ‘ My good woman” as if I had n’t 
any name,” said another poor, crushed-looking 
American woman. “ The cloth I made up 
came from Miss Lincoln — there she comes 
now ; look ! on the platform — see, she ’s tak- 
ing off her gloves to play for us ! ” 

There was a group on the platform discuss- 
ing the best way to quell the confusion, while 
Miss Sibyl, thoroughly disheartened, had sunk 
on to the sofa in tears, sobbing, “This is all 
the thanks I ’ve got for all my toil ! ” 

Just then a tall, fair-haired woman rose and 


124 Mother West's Neighbors . 

asked if she might say a few words. “ Cer- 
tainly,” said two or three voices from the plat- 
form, among which were those of Mary Lin- 
coln and Mother West, the latter of whom had 
now by her skill and good judgment taken her 
place among “ the ladies.” 

“ The friend who wishes to speak is Mrs. 
Clapper, a neighbor of mine and a friend of 
this school,” Mrs. West said, in a tone low and 
yet distinctly heard all over the hall. 

Then Mrs. Clapper said, t( I am the woman 
who asked for a dark calico in place of a pink 
one ; and I wish to say there was no insolence 
meant by that request. I wanted to have a 
gown I could work in, after giving so many 
hours to making it. I have much to thank 
this school for, and so have many others who 
may forget it now. 

“ I once had a good home and loving friends 
far up among the White Hills. I taught the 
village school and was beloved by all my schol- 
ars ; and their parents little dreamed that ever 
I should live in one room in Guptil Alley ! I 
took one false step and that led me into dark- 
ness. I thought every other step was down ; 


Miss Sibyl and Mrs . Clapper. 125 

and I fought against all my surroundings to 
avoid going down still further, and to keep my 
child from being dragged down. I forgot that 
the same step on the ladder which led me down 
was there to lead me up, if I turned and put 
my foot upon it. When my good neighbor, 
Mrs. West, asked me in to her little meetings, I 
would not go ; I never went to any meeting lest 
it would remind me of old days and make me 
wild ; but I had no fear of a school where I 
could be helped to clothes, and find sympathy, 
and have two cheerful hours in the week. This 
school has been a great blessing to me, and I 
know it has been the same to others. I hope it 
will not be given up. If one lady is discour- 
aged, all need not be ! Let these ladies agree 
to hold on, and many of the poorest women 
here will lend their help.* I am skillful with my 
needle and my shears, and I will cut work half 
a day every week, if I sit up by night to make 
up my time on my poorly paid sewing. The 
kind words I have had from some ladies here 
have lifted me into life and hope again ; and 
I want to work here for others just like my- 
self. I had almost forgotten there was a God, 


126 Mother West's Neighbors. 

when, on the first opening of this school, we 
sang, — 

* One there is above all others 
Well deserves the name of friend 

and I want to hear more of Him here, and to 
return to Him, and to do some good in the 
world. I cannot tell these ladies how grateful 
I am for their kindness ; but I cannot believe 
it is wise in any of them to go to the homes of 
the poor and pry into all their little affairs, 
as some of these women say ladies do. If 
they get lessons of order and neatness here, 
they will practice them at home. I, who live 
among them, see the change already.” 

Both platform and benches were pleased and 
pacified by Mrs. Clapper’s remarks ; and her 
neighbors whispered, “ She and Mrs. West is 
friends we need not be ashamed to own. 
They’re as wise as the ladies themselves.” 

Kitty McCosh had kept up her private min- 
istry over Miss Thorne’s affairs ; and by a 
silent understanding it had remained a secret 
between them. Miss Thorne had once told 
Kitty that if she could only ride there, nothing 
would please her better than going to the 


Miss Sibyl and Mrs. Clapper. 12 7 

school regularly, if only to look and smile on 
those poor disheartened toilers. Kitty had 
told this to Miss Mary Lincoln, and she now 
volunteered to bring Miss Thorne to the school 
every week the coming year. Miss Thorne 
could open the school as none of the others 
could, and they would relieve her of all work. 

A new committee was chosen, with the gen- 
tle Miss Thorne at its head, although Miss 
Sibyl declared that if the women treated her 
sister as they had done herself, they would kill 
her in a month. 

Mrs. West’s daughter and Mrs. Clapper were 
put upon the cutting committee, and Mrs. West 
and Kitty McCosh were appointed visitors, 
because they knew the women who ought to 
be gathered in ; Mary Lincoln and some three 
or four other young girls who had access to 
large purses at home volunteered to supply 
materials for the next year, and to help such as 
really needed help, in other ways. 

The poor women, hearing this, settled down 
again in their seats, their faces bright with 
smiles, one of their number remarking, “ It is 
just an old angel Mrs. West is and a young 


128 Mother West's Neighbors . 

one yon Miss Lincoln is.” Singing and play- 
ing cheered their hearts, and they were all 
nearly as happy as if no squall had struck their 
little bark, when a colored man came in, laden 
with flowers from Mr. Lincoln’s conservatory. 
There was a bouquet for every woman there, 
and a little parian vase to hold it. 

Neither bread nor garments could have done 
the work of those flowers just then. They 
were a proof that Mary Lincoln, at least, ac- 
knowledged that the women were something 
more than beggars, — that they were sisters 
with tastes like her own. 

Miss Sibyl relented, and at the parting, as 
the women filed past the desk to shake hands 
with the other ladies, she gave them her hand, 
remarking now and then that she hoped they 
would not kill her poor sister next winter, and 
also that she was about to open a day mission 
for the babies of working women, — babies were 
never ungrateful or independent, — and that if 
any of them wished their infants taken care of 
while out washing, they could get their names 
recorded by calling on Miss Cutler, at 7 
Downer Avenue. Another “ society ” had 
taken possession of the poor woman’s brain ! 


Miss Sibyl and Mrs. Clapper . 129 

f 

“ The Mission at our Door ” would have 
fallen dead, had not others now taken it in 
charge. As it was, it lives and thrives. 

Its work was not laid aside even then, to 
wait for autumn winds to blow it into life 
again. The constitution was changed and 
shortened, and the helpers were brought into 
a closer and more sisterly relation to each 
other. There was no longer a lady patroness 
on one side, and washer-women, drunkards 1 
wives, and thriftless mothers on the other. 
They were favored Christian women aiding, 
cheering, and blessing unfortunate and erring 
sisters. The helpers visited and wrought for 
those who needed assistance all through the 
summer ; and many a poor attic was exchanged 
for a tidy chamber ; many a distracted mother 
encouraged to new hope and energy ; and more 
than one led from vice to virtue. And as Je- 
sus wrought among and with the lowly, so 
these blessed women are working to-day in His 
spirit ; and “ The Mission at our Door” is a 
blessing to the city whose fair daughters sus- 
tain it, as well as a means of leading many of 
that neglected class, “ the poor and proud,” into 
the new and nobler life in Christ. 

n 


XII. 


THE LANDLORD. 

' | 'WO gentlemen were sitting one evening 
-*• before a glowing fire in a richly furnished 
library, talking on business matters. One of 
them was a fine-looking elderly person, with 
flowing locks touched with silver, and kind 
gray eyes whose glance disproved the charge 
of heartlessness, so commonly laid at the door 
of the very rich. 

His companion was a much younger man, 
tall, pale, and with a shadow of sadness almost 
painful on his fine face. 

When account-books and papers were laid 
aside the old gentleman said kindly, “ Sit down, 
Mr. Joy. I want to ask you two or three 
questions about this change in Guptil Alley. 
Ever since I have held real estate, I have no- 
ticed that when a piece of property began to 
run down, there was no use in trying to help 
it. Down it would go, just as sure as a ball 


The Landlord. 


I3i 

would from the house-top ; every change of 
tenants was for the worse, worthy mechanics 
and honest laborers fleeing from their coarse 
new neighbors, and leaving room for more of 
the same class. I have been actually ashamed 
of being known as the owner of Guptil Alley, 
and was about putting the place under the 
auctioneers hammer, when that marvelous 
child came here urging me to sustain her in 
her efforts at cleaning and keeping it clean ! I 
painted and papered and set glass, hoping 
against hope, mainly to please her, for I never 
saw such good sense and energy combined in 
any young person before. I said to her, after 
promising to aid her, ' My child, you can’t work 
miracles ! ’ ” 

Yes, sir, I can/ she said. 'Mother West 
works miracles, and if I ’m as good and as 
lovin’ as she, I can work them too ! You 
should see the swearin’ men that pray now, and 
the careless women that are neat and tidy.’ 
And so she went on, with her eyes and cheeks 
glowing. I really believe the child has accom- 
plished her work. I never was so astonished 
in my life, as at the change in that place. It is 


132 Mother Wests Neighbors . 

true, as you say, that my property has grown 
in value since Mrs. West moved there, and I 
shall cheerfully accede to your wishes in this 
matter. When Blaine moves out, you may 
have the parlors of that house remodeled so 
as to please the people, for hall or chapel — as 
you please to call it. Put in a desk, a clock, 
good gas-fixtures, and make it attractive for 
their schools, concerts, and temperance-meet- 
ings ; all of which I shall gladly help to sus- 
tain. Yes, Mr. Joy,” continued the landlord, 
laying his hand kindly on the shoulder of the 
other, and looking in his face, “ there have in- 
deed been miracles wrought among my poor 
tenants and their neighbors ! ” 

“ Among which my case is the chief ! ” ex- 
claimed Mr. Joy ; “a miracle of grace ! ” 

“Yes, I never saw such a transformation; 
and I can truly say I rejoice in it as if you 
were my own son. Ah ! Joy, your father and 
I had many merry, happy days together. I 
had often thought of trying to save you for 
his sake. But your case was so hopeless. I 
had no heart to begin ; and so I never did,” 
said the landlord. 


The Landlord. 


133 


“ And God saved me through one or two 
humble women and this poor child. Are you 
willing, sir, to tell me what prompted you to 
send for me and trust me with business before 
I was hardly out of the slough where I had lain 
chained for years ? ” 

“ Certainly. As I told you, my heart had 
often ached for the honor of my friend, and I 
desired to lift you up, but did not know how 
to begin. 

“ One night this Kitty McCosh came here 
again to tell me the success of her efforts — 
how many bushels of oyster-shells and other 
trash, and how many dead kittens she had 
scraped up and carried off after the loose work 
of the tenants, and how that miserable fellow 
who sold liquor in the cellar of No. 3 had 
moved for want of customers. She sat here 
as much at her ease as if she were my daugh- 
ter, neither surprised nor dazzled by anything 
she saw here. 

“ After a few moments she said, ‘ Has n’t 
there been half-miracles in Guptil Alley, sir ? * 
I said, ‘Yes, my child, there have, most cer- 
tainly/ 


134 Mother West's Neighbors . 

v “ Then she said, 4 and, sir, there ’s going to 
be a zvhole miracle soon — like healin’ the 
withered hand, bringin’ a mad body to his right 
mind, or raisin’ the widow o’ Nain’s son. I 
suppose ye’ve read o’ ’em in the Bible, sir ? 
Would ye like a hand in the great work the 
Lord is doin’ among us ? ’ 

“ The child startled me ! I asked her what 
she meant, and she said, 4 Why, sir, the Lord 
has come and is goin’ to save Mr. Joy, the 
poor, dear lawyer ! Mother West has taken 
him by the hand and carried him to Jesus to 
be put in his right mind ; and He ’ll do it ; for 
He does everything she asks Him to do. We 
must all strive for a share o’ the blessin’ ; but 
I ’m so young and so poor that I can do naught 
but pray for him, and plead with ye, sir. Ye’ve 
always spoke so pleasant to me that I thought 
I ’d like to give ye a share in the blessin’. It 
would be such an honor from God, ye know, to 
help Mother West.’ I declare to you, Joy, I 
did not know whether to laugh or cry ; so I 
did a little of both, and asked, 4 How can I 
help her, child ? ’ 

“ 4 1 ’ll tell you,’ she said. 4 You know the 


The Landlord. 


I 3S 


surest way to keep Satan off is to be ever 
busy. Now, beside needin’ a way to earn his 
bread, dear Mr. Joy must have work o’ some 
kind for this end. You have just stores o’ 
riches, and heaps o’ business. As your agent 
is goin’ to other work, I thought perhaps Mr. 
Joy could collect your rents and look after us 
all — that we do right. Indeed, sir, we’d all 
try so hard to do right, and to help him, that 
ye ’d have forty agents, while only payin’ one, 
and ye ’d have a blessin’ yerself ; and who can 
tell but ye would be converted — though ye be 
so rich and fine ! ’ 

“ Joy, I actually felt as if I had been left out 
when all my poor tenants were receiving such 
blessings ; and as I looked in that child’s face, 
I saw that she pitied me ! I felt that I wanted 
what she called the ( blessin’,’ so I sent for you, 
and the result is, that to-day you have most of 
my affairs in your hands, and that I am per- 
fectly satisfied with you — if not with myself,” 
said the gentleman. 

“Why not with yourself, sir?” asked Joy, 
modestly. 

“Oh, Joy, I can’t feel that I have ever re- 


136 Mother West's Neighbors . 

ceived ‘ the blessing ’ that poor child half prom- 
ised me. As for this world, I am rich : and I 
know I am not covetous. But still the cares 
of riches crush my spirit, and make me rest- 
less and uneasy. I wish I knew how to rise 
above this.” 

“ Get rid of some of your money, dear sir,” 
said Mr. Joy. “ I could show you a woman in 
one of your tenement houses, whose whole 
property is not worth a hundred dollars, and 
who is yet happier than a queen. Oh, the 
brightness of the crown that is awaiting her! 
The richest woman might envy her. She has 
the world and its vanities under her feet, and 
lives in a region of peace almost as serene as 
that she is looking for beyond. And yet she 
enjoys the beautiful things of earth as much, 
and indeed, far more, than do many whose only 
portion is here. The simplest flower is a de- 
light to her ; and she spends her leisure in 
training such as she can buy at the stalls, 
around her window, and over her few little pict- 
ures. Those flowers are in such contrast with 
their poor surroundings that they seem to me 
the most beautiful I have ever seen. One 
never sees her poverty.” 


The Landlord ' 


137 


“ That woman is indeed a { miracle-worker/ ” 
said the landlord. “ She turns sinners into 
saints, changes the abodes of vice and sorrow 
into homes of the virtuous poor, and transforms 
her own poverty into true riches. I have often 
thought of going to her room, but feared lest 
she might think I came only as a patron. She 
has never asked any favor of me, and I should 
not like to appear as if offering any ; and yet 
I want greatly to see her and learn the secret 
of her peace. ” 

“ I will go with you, sir, if you wish,” re- 
plied Joy. “You need offer her no personal 
favor ; but you can give her something, if you 
please, for poor Tommy and her other pen- 
sioners.” 

“ Does that black dwarf pay his rent ? ” 
asked the landlord. 

“Yes, sir, by the help of his neighbors. I 
took him out of the cellar and placed him in 
an attic. His rheumatism gave way at once ; 
and I think he will soon be at his little jobs 
again,” said Mr. Joy. 

“ Do you think the fellow is really able to 
earn a living, Joy ?” asked the landlord. 


138 Mother West's Neighbors . 

“ Hardly, sir. Both he and the shoe-string 
peddler work far beyond their strength. They 
say if it were not for their rent they could get 
on very well. They put the first of their earn- 
ings away for that ; and then get food and 
clothes if they can,” replied Mr. Joy. 

“ Who took care of them when they were 
ill ? ” 

“ Mrs. West and her daughter, and two or 
three other poor women agreed to make their 
gruel and broth, and Kitty McCosh went in 
every day and made their beds and ‘ tidied up 
their rooms,’ with her button-bag jingling be- 
fore her, bustling about and singing till they 
quite forgot their pains in their delight at her 
kindness.” 

“ Joy, that one penniless child has done 
more for the world than I with all my wealth 
have done. Come, let us go and see how to 
get rid of this weight of care that is keeping 
down my spirits and clogging my feet. We ’ll 
make the case of these two old men our osten- 
sible errand, and hear what this saint has to 
say.” 

During the visit of the landlord to his ten- 


The Landlord. 


139 


ant, there was no affectation of condescension 
on one side, nor of spiritual superiority on the 
other. The two conversed on topics of gen- 
eral interest ; then about the tenants in the 
alley, their present wants, and their recent im- 
provement. This last subject led the landlord 
to remark :(yi have other property where my 
tenants are too much as these were before this 
great change came over them. How can I 
bring about the same results for them ? ” 

“ I cannot tell what you can do, personally, 
further than to repair their homes, and deal 
kindly with them/’ was the reply. 

“ How have you, who could not do even this, 
accomplished so much for the people here ? ” 
asked the landlord. 

“ I have been one among them ; I have 
loved them, and done all that this love 
prompted. A mother could hardly tell you in 
a word how she brought up her children to 
virtue and usefulness. She loves them, and 
every act and word of hers goes to make up 
the influence that moulds their character/’ re- 
plied Mother West. 

“ Does this mighty change come over every- 


140 Mother West's Neighbors. 

body you love and labor for ? ” asked the old 
gentleman, respectfully. 

“ It would be great presumption in me to 
say so ; and yet I must magnify the faithful- 
ness of a covenant-keeping God, by telling you 
that He has given me the desire of my heart 
in almost every instance here. I truly believe 
that with all my frailties and sins, I am one of 
those who fear God, and He tells us that His 
secret is with such. I never doubt His promise 
when I see work to be done for Him, and for 
some erring child of His. When I see the 
work, I almost see its accomplishment ; and 
so I work on in trust,” replied Mother West. 

“ I hope you realize that the poor and de- 
graded are not the only ones who have a claim 
on those whose prayers are heard,” said the 
landlord. 

“ They are too often the only ones humble 
enough to feel the need of God’s pity and 
mercy, sir,” replied the good woman. “ The 
old illustration of the camel and the needle’s 
eye has lost none of its force. The rich have 
great odds against them in the matter of sal- 
vation, sir ; the * whole need not a physician, 
but they that are sick.' ” 


The Landlord. 


141 

There was silence for a moment. The rich 
man was not quite humble enough to say to 
that poor woman, “ I am sick, and poor, and 
in need of your pity and your prayers.” He 
turned for relief to what he could do for him- 
self ; and said, “ Mrs. West, my friend, Mr. 
Joy, tells me how needy those two old pen- 
sioners of yours are ; and I came to say to 
you that they shall never be pressed for their 
rent. Mr. Joy may give you six receipted 
bills, for a month’s rent, each, to be used at 
your discretion. If they are able, let them 
pay their rent ; but when they have been ill or 
unfortunate in their work, give them a receipt. 
Do you know any one else who needs the same 
favor occasionally ? ” he asked, sincerely hop- 
ing she would put in her own claim. 

“ No, sir, I do not. The people are all poor, 
but they have work and can get on when well. 
I believe the worst thing we can do for one 
not really in want is to encourage a spirit of 
dependence. Should any such case occur, I 
will let you know it, and feel very grateful to 
you for any help you may give.” 

“ Thank you, Mrs. West,” replied the land- 


142 Mother Wests Neighbors . 

lord rising to go ; then breaking off a large 
leaf from a thrifty rose geranium on the win- 
dow-sill, he asked, “ Can I do anything for 
you, personally ? ” 

“ I think of nothing now,, sir,” was the reply. 
“ I thank you very much for this call and for 
your interest in my poor neighbors. Can I 
do anything for you, sir ? ” 

The calm assurance and the tender tone of 
the poor woman startled the rich man, and 
threw him off his guard. “ Yes, madam,” he 
replied, “ do for me just what you have done 
for these poor people ; love me, pity me, and 
do all for me that love and pity prompt. Good- 
night. Mr. Joy will tell you to-morrow what I 
have said about a place for your schools and 
your meetings.” 

The landlord and his business-man walked 
on in silence till they came to the house of 
the former, where they parted with only a 
“ Good-night.” Each was buried in his own 
thoughts. 


XIII. 


TAKING CARE OF THEMSELVES. 

'TT'HE great object of Christian charity, after 

A relieving present absolute want, is to 
teach people to take care of themselves ; and 
whoever fails in this, no matter how great his 
sacrifices or how princely his gifts, does a 
wrong, not only to the recipient, but also to 
society at large. 

This was the principle on which Mother 
West wrought in her humble way, and although 
she had neither silver nor gold to bestow, her 
record will shine like the sun when that of 
many a “ princely donor ” shall have faded 
utterly away. 

Passing through the heart of the city where 
this good woman pursued her modest work, 
you will come upon a park surrounded by fine 
dwellings whose owners still cling to them, al- 
though the fashionable rich have long ago fled 
to the new parts of the city, set up shining 


144 Mother West's Neighbors. 

coaches and shinier coachmen, and draped 
themselves with laces and hung out diamonds, 
as signs of their wealth. Behind one of these 
blocks is an alley occupied by a tidy and gen- 
erally prosperous class of laboring people who 
in no way annoy or incommode their genteel 
neighbors. At the head of this place, — once 
Guptil Alley, — and plainly seen from the pub- 
lic street, stands a house whose lower floor is a 
chapel. Over the door is an iron arch support- 
ing a large lamp, on the front pane of which 
may be seen, in gilt letters, the words “ Mission 
at our Door.” 

For the name of the place we may thank 
Miss Sibyl Thorne. For the seed sown in 
prayer and faith and deep sacrifice, and for 
the fair harvest it has yielded, we must thank 
Mother West. 

Ask the poor cripple who takes care of the 
chapel and who loves the very dust on its walls, 
about the work there, and he will reply, as he 
has to others, with a smile of gratitude on his 
weather-beaten face, “ I ’ll tell ye, sir, this place 
be a miracle, a grace and mercy. Ten year 
ago I lived at number six alone, cookin’ my bit 


Taking care of Themselves . 145 

o’ food and eatin’ it as thoughtless o’ God as 
the dog that eat my crumbs. I mended my 
own poor clothes by night, and by day stood on 
a street corner sellin’ shoe-strings to passers-by. 
I thought there was neither man nor woman in 
all the wide world as cared whether I lost my 
soul or no. But the Lord have His eye on me 
all the time, and He send this blessed woman 
as we calls Mother West to me ; and from the 
hour she took me by the hand my clouds all 
fled away and I come out into such sunlight as 
you never beheld ! Since that there have never 
been a cloud nor a nightfall for me nor for 
scores more like me ; and now we 're a 'appy 
flock o’ neighbors. 

“ After that, sir, a fine lady took 'old o’ us 
and was goin' to — well, sir, I don't just know 
what she was goin' to do with us, and I doubt 
me if she knew herself ! But she talked to the 
poor honest things here as if they were all pick- 
pockets and villyans ; whereas quite a many o' 
'em were poor, heart-broken dears, toilin' day 
and night to keep their children off the city and 
out o’ the way o’ sin — for, sir, a body may be 
starvin’ poor and yet not be villainous ! She 


10 


146 Mother West's Neighbors. 

grew weary, and our dear mother took the 
work. When the great day come, sir, there ’ll 
be both high and low in the vast crowd that ’ll 
strive hard to get a hold o’ one corner o’ Mother 
West’s mantle — not a poor faded black thing 
such as she wear now, but one as shall shine as 
the light — white, like the righteousness of the 
saints.” 

And if you ask him who now keeps up this 
work, he will reply : — 

“ It ’s well, sir, we all put a ’and to it ; but 
the Lord He stand at the ’elm and guide the 
bark, and get all the glory to ’imself. I tell ye, 
sir, when the grand and lofty comes to the 
Lord, they halways ’ang on to the notion a bit 
that the Lord do be under some hobligation to 
them for their condescension ; but when them 
comes that ’s so far down as they can’t get no 
lower, and has nothin’ but sin and weakness to 
hoffer Him, they lays low and leans on ’im 
alone and don’t hoffer ’im no compliments. We 
has one gentleman as sort of leads hoff, but ’e’s 
the ’umblest of us hall — Mr. Joy, a lawyer. 
He was once forsook of all men — even of his- 
self. I need n’t bring up ould scores ag’in when 


Taking care of Themselves . 147 

the Lord ’ave blotted them all out. He are 
our leader in all that are good ; but he hold his 
’ead very low and walk softly before the Lord.” 

If you ask who supports the place, he will 
say, reverently, — 

“ The Lord do it, sir, and in ’is love He lets 
us ’elp ’im a bit. The dear lan’lord do give us 
this place free o’ rent ; and the servants o’ the 
Lord do come one and another of a Sabbath 
and speak words o’ comfort and instruction to 
us. Then we ’ave ’elpers as the Lord ’as given 
us, with money. Mr. Lincoln’s family, mostly 
yon lovely Miss Mary ; and a fine young gen- 
tleman of a cousin ; and a dear lady, Miss 
Thorne, and another Miss Bell ; and they come 
’ere and teach us of a Sunday out o’ the gospel. 
But, sir, if ye ’ll no take it for consate, I ’ll say 
that there be among ourselves many as the 
Lord honors. There be one poor black fellow 
we calls ‘ Brother Tommy,’ that labor more for 
the poor and their Master than do a dozen com- 
mon Christians. And hand in hand with 
Mother West is a maid they call Kitty McCosh, 
who has such a winning-like way that she seem 
to ’ave the purse-strings o’ the rich in her fin- 


148 Mother West's Neighbors . 

gers ! And she labor and bear other people’s 
burdens and keep folk at peace and at work in 
a way that are marvelous ! We just puts hand 
in hand and shoulder to shoulder and ’elps 
each other, and it’s just wonderful ’ow that 
lightens loads all round ! Hif Brother Tommy 
are ill, I does ’is work ; hif I am lower than 
common, ’e starts hoff with the shoe-strings. 
Hif one of us is hout o’ coal the others are not ; 
and sometimes I fancy that we are much like 
the ’postolic church of hold, we ’as hall things 
in common. 

“ My experience in good things are small, 
but I see plain that there be ways o’ doin’ good 
that bring evils with ’em. It ’s better to cure a 
cripple than to carry him, or to cut his legs off 
and make ’im still more a cripple. There be 
hunfortunate folk, who, hif ye feed ’em once 
will sit starin’ at ye with their mouth open the 
rest o’ their life, waitin’ to be fed forever. And 
there they will sit till they gets the palsy o’ 
laziness fast on ’em, and be a curse to their- 
selves and the community, — for the folk as 
eats up other folk are the most ’opeless class on 
God’s earth ! We in this neighborhood ’ave 


Taking care of Themselves . 149 

’ad ’elp enough to ruin us, only for the wisdom 
o’ our Mother West, as put us on our honor 
and bid us refuse a copper we could do without, 
either for ourselves or our mission ! That it 
’elps us to keep our self-respect and not to go 
whinin’ about like born beggars. It would just 
surprise ye to see ’ow respectful these ’elpers be 
to the poorest o’ us ! They sees that we strive 
to bear our hown burdens, and so they take 
hold o’ a corner of ’em and give us a lift very 
cheerful. 

“ There ’s a screw loose in the charity o’ fine 
folk in general. They are too hapt to take up 
the poor bodily and carry ’em till they ’ve lost 
the use o’ their limbs (or what ’s the same, the 
will to work), and then they drop them sud- 
dent to the ground and are surprised because 
they are worse off than they were afore ! ” 

The questions involved in the subject of 
charity are many and intricate. Perhaps we 
may learn something from these humble creat- 
ures in “ Mission Place,” who, had they simply 
been fed and clothed by Miss Sibyl Thorne’s 
patronage, would still have been the denizens 


Mother Wests Neighbors. 


ISO 

of “ Guptil Alley/* as they were before its 
name and character were changed. 

It may be wise in some of us who are work- 
ing in this broad field to go to Mother West, 
Kitty McCosh, " Beautiful Tommy/* and the 
shoe-string peddler for instruction. 

































































. 






\ 


















































































































1 




- 







LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



0 005 370 840 7 » 



